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Neither Lydia Charbonneau nor Jack Blackwood thinks it’s a good idea to get involved, but one handshake and one very short conversation have them making plans for a weekend romp. She’s a concert pianist and music professor from the University of Kansas, in New York to audition for a position at Juilliard. He’s an uncouth bond trader and accidental CEO who likes meaningless sex (lots of it), Big Macs, and Dumb and Dumber. They have nothing in common—until one of Jack’s ex-lovers nearly kills them both.

← We Were Gods, Book 6

Lion’s Share, Book 8 →

 

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PROLOGUE

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1: STRIKE PRICE

March, 1996
Blackwood Securities
Wall Street
New York City, New York

JACK BLACKWOOD stood at the window of his massive office high over the East River and tied his tie in the reflection. Assistants and interns ran this way and that, in and out of his office. As the glass doors separating the executive suit from the vast trading floor swung open and closed, the volume of men yelling and phones ringing rose and fell.

“Jack—”

“Jack—”

“Jack—”

“Goddammit!” Jack roared at the three interns who blew in and accosted him at the same time. “Figure the goddamn thing out for yourselves!”

“Okay, look,” said Jack’s best (relatively speaking) friend, intercepting the brand new, painfully confused traders. He snatched the slips out of their hands and shuffled through them, studied them, sorted them out like playing cards, divvied them up, and handed them back with detailed instructions.

The three newbies bolted.

“Aren’t you precious,” Jack muttered, adjusting his collar.

Sebastian Taight cast him an irritated glance. “Can’t you try to be less of a dick?”

“They have fucking MBAs!” Jack protested. “From Harvard or some such shit. They should be able to do this job before orientation.”

“They don’t teach this in B-school, asshole.”

“They don’t teach it in the math department, either,” he retorted.

“Do they teach you how to keep from losing eleven million of my dollars in fifteen minutes? No. Which is why I had to drop everything at home and get on a plane. To babysit you.”

That hit the mark and Jack snarled at Sebastian in the glass.

“Sooo,” Sebastian drawled smugly, “whereya headed?”

Jack turned and shrugged his suit coat on. “Ramona’s meeting me for lunch and I don’t want to be late.”

“Mind if I tag along? I have to be at Juilliard at three for an audition and I want to eat first.”

He gestured toward the door and followed Sebastian out of the office. “What kind of an audition?”

“My cousin’s old roommate is auditioning for a teaching position and she needs some moral support. You’re welcome to come with me. She’s a helluva pianist. Once she gets going, that is.”

“Stage fright?”

“It’s painful. Too bad, too, because she plays Rachmaninoff like she’s channeling the bastard.”

That meant nothing to Jack, so he brushed it off, stopping at his executive assistants’ desk for messages, various traders’ desks to check their stats, order, demand, or kick ass, before hitting the elevator, then Wall Street.

“Where’d you pick Ramona up?” Sebastian asked as they slid into Jack’s waiting car.

“Stewardess,” Jack grunted, then gave his driver an uptown address. “Last month. She works the route to Hotlanta.”

“I don’t even know why I asked. You’re not tired of her yet?”

He patted his suit coat pocket. “Got the ice right here.”

Sebastian chuckled. “I can’t keep up with you.”

“Jealous.”

Sebastian snorted. “Hardly. You use women like paper towels to wipe your dick off.”

“If you’re trying to insult me, you’re gonna have to do better than that. I meant to break it off at lunch, but I’m not going to do it in front of you.”

“Oh, you shoulda said something.”

“No rush. Did I hear you say you were going to Europe?”

“June. Have to take care of a couple of clients, check up on a cousin, drop in on some old friends.”

“Good, ’cause I need you to scout some locations for an office in London. You have contacts there, right?”

“Yep. Not a problem.”

With that, they discussed details of Sebastian’s impending trip until they reached the restaurant. It wasn’t the first time Sebastian had met a woman Jack was dating, and it wasn’t the first time Sebastian had staunchly refused to be polite to one. Of course, Sebastian was rarely polite to anyone in business-social or formal settings anyway. He only respected women he was doing business with and he only fucked women he was painting.

Ramona was neither.

What Ramona was, other than Jack’s soon-to-be-ex girlfriend, was immediately hot for Sebastian.

This did not surprise Jack.

This did not amuse Sebastian.

“Oh, I love the theater!” Ramona exclaimed when Jack mentioned Sebastian’s afternoon plans. Sebastian rolled his eyes so hard they rattled in his head. “Jack, I want to go. Take me.”

Arguing with her about it would take all fucking afternoon, so he said, “Okay.”

Sebastian was immediately pissed off, but he kept his oh hell no to himself when Jack kicked his leg under the table.

Ramona kept up a steady stream of chatter all the way to Lincoln Center and all the way from the car to the concert hall where the audition was being held. There were a few people milling around, talking in hushed and not-so-hushed voices. There were some already sitting in seats scattered throughout the hall with pens, papers, and coffee.

“Sebastian!”

“Hey, Lyds,” Sebastian called and led Jack and Ramona down to the front.

Sadly, the minute Jack clapped eyes on the little concert pianist with stage fright, he caught wood, which stymied him enough that it subsided gracefully. But he was a professional and he thrived on pressure. Some people knew that if Jack were calm, cool, and collected, it meant he was feeling a lot of pressure.

Ramona didn’t know this about him.

Sebastian did, and gave him the side-eye when Jack coolly greeted the woman and looked into her plain old gray eyes.

“Hello,” she murmured when they shook hands, her grip perfectly firm, looking straight at him as if she were trying to tell him something.

Jack could sense Sebastian watching this meeting as if he were waiting for something.

“Jack Blackwood. Pleased to meet you, Ms … ?”

“Charbonneau,” she said with a quiet calm that seemed to come from her core, a serenity Jack was a complete stranger to, a tranquility that was as fake as a Milli Vanilli performance. Jack was immediately fascinated. “Lydia Charbonneau.”

“That,” exclaimed Ramona, “is a gorgeous outfit. You look like a Spanish bullfighter, only a skirt and not pants.”

She smiled blankly. “Thank you. This is one of my performance outfits.”

“Purple and gold to perform in, when most people choose plain black! And all that bling! That’s a bold choice! But your sleeve is split.”

“It’s supposed to be like that to allow full range of motion.”

And the women were suddenly talking clothes.

Actually, Ramona was doing all the talking. Ms Charbonneau looked politely bored. Her eyebrow went up when Ramona asked her how much the outfit cost. Sebastian coughed into his fist.

Jack stepped back and studied Ms Charbonneau carefully, as if admiring her gold-encrusted purple jacket. He didn’t give a shit about the jacket, but it let him pretend his attention was not on the tight purple skirt that emphasized her hips and very smooth ass he was suddenly dying to touch.

“You had an interesting reaction to Lydia,” Sebastian murmured when the three of them headed toward the middle of the auditorium, where she had requested they sit.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jack muttered out of the side of his mouth, watching her talk to the jurors, smile serenely, look into their eyes, and speak calmly.

“Her eyes.”

That was not what Jack expected Sebastian to have noticed. “What about ’em?”

“Most men kind of fall in.”

That was the dumbest thing Jack had ever heard. “What’s that mean?”

“Look at the guy she’s talking to right now.”

“Huh,” Jack muttered after a few seconds’ observation. “He looks hypnotized.”

“Yeah. That. She has that effect on most men, including me, which is why I never look her in the eye. You’re the only man I’ve ever met who’s looked her in the eye and been able to act normally.”

Jack looked at Sebastian, confused. “What is she, like Love Potion Number Nine or something?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Men don’t fall in love with her. They just do whatever she wants. If she lived in Salem way back in the day, she’d have been burned at the stake, it’s that creepy.”

“You don’t like her?”

“I like her. A lot. She’s fun. Smart. I just don’t look her in the eye.”

“Jack,” Ramona pouted. “I thought you said we were going to the theater.”

“No,” Sebastian drawled, his disdain cranked to eleven, “he said we were going to go to Juilliard to hear an audition.”

“Oh. For what?”

“A job.”

“Doing what?” she demanded.

“You do see the piano on the stage, don’t you? What do you think it’s for?”

“You have to audition for that?”

“This is Juilliard, Ramona,” Sebastian gritted out. “It is a performing arts school. One performs here.”

“You don’t have to talk to me like I’m stupid, Sebastian.”

Jack pursed his lips to keep from laughing.

“You asked her how much her outfit cost. That was stupid. Or gauche, which is even worse.”

“Jack,” she growled.

“Ignore him,” Jack muttered. “Artistic temperament.”

“Jack!” Sebastian snapped.

Oops. That was top secret.

She sat back with a huff and sniped, “He doesn’t look like an artist.”

Jack would’ve flung a few barbs in both directions but he didn’t have a chance because the lights went down and all three of them settled back into their chairs. The woman came out on stage, stood at the edge, folded her hands in front of her and said,

“I am Lydia Charbonneau, BME, MM, DMA, tenured professor of music theory, composition, and advanced piano studies at the University of Kansas, auditioning for the position of music theory, composition, and advanced piano studies instructor. I will be playing Rachmaninoff, Concerto Number Three, third movement; Beethoven, Sonata Number Fourteen Opus Twenty-seven, third movement; Liszt, Rondo Fantastique.”

“Shit,” Sebastian whispered.

“What?”

“The last one. Very few people have played it or can play it. Not only that, but nobody really likes it. It isn’t that pleasant a listening experience.”

“So she’s playing it because … ?”

“It’s considered unplayable. The other two are flashy, but people at her level should be able to play those. She’s comfortable with those pieces so she’s going for easy up front. She’s playing the Liszt last after she’s warmed up, to show her virtuosity because her stage fright’s going to kill her chances if she doesn’t have something really impressive at the back end.”

“That makes sense to somebody somewhere, right?”

“You are an uncultured swine.”

The woman sat down at the piano. Took a deep breath. Adjusted her bench. Adjusted it again. Put her hands on the keys. Took them off. Balled them up in her lap. Closed her eyes. Looked like she was praying. Opened her eyes. Put her hands back on the keys and began. Hesitantly. Even Jack could hear she was trying not to hit a wrong note. He heard it often enough with new traders who had to be taught how to ignore their mistakes and move on like they hadn’t screwed up.

After a few minutes of the plunking, she started to warm up, her shoulders loosened, and indeed, the slits in her sleeves did seem to be helpful.

“That is a really awful color on her.”

CRASH

Jack and Sebastian gaped at Ramona, who had clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide, and tried a penitent grimace on the row of jurors down front who turned to glare at the three of them. “I’m sorry,” Ramona said in a very small voice.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sebastian hissed.

Jack glanced up to the stage at the pianist, whose head was bowed, her hands clenched around the edge of the bench, and the toe of one of her stilettos on top of the other. Her whole body was cringing.

“Jack,” Sebastian growled.

“Ramona,” Jack said, fishing his wallet out of his inside coat pocket and giving her his credit card.

“You’re going to stay?”

Jack flicked a glance back up at the musician on stage. He didn’t know anything about music and he knew whatever she was going to play—if she played it—would bore him to tears and he really didn’t want to be here at all, but now he felt compelled to stay.

“Yeh. See you tonight.”

“Thanks,” she whispered, then slid out of the row and disappeared into the darkness.

“Please begin again, Dr. Charbonneau.”

She didn’t want to. Even Jack could see that. Whatever groove she might have been able to find was gone.

It took a while, but finally she put her hands on the keys again. And again she started out painfully hesitant. She hit a few wrong notes, which Jack only knew because Sebastian winced. With every wrong note, she hit another one, then a string of them, and then …

“Oh, fuck,” Sebastian whispered, bending over at the waist and putting his face in his hands.

The notes abruptly stopped. Jack looked up to see her again in that cringing pose, but her fists were against the wood under the keys. He watched her soberly, silently begging her to pull herself together.

Finally, she put her fingers on the keyboard and—

CRASH

Again.

But this time it was because she was pounding the keyboard with gusto.

Sebastian’s head shot up. “Hm. Nice save.”

Jack said nothing, but Sebastian’s approval must mean she was doing it right, although Jack would never be able to tell. Her fingers were going fast and he supposed it was impressive, but he wouldn’t know this from any other professional pianist. Sebastian, on the other hand, was, at this moment, sliding halfway down in his seat, folding his hands over his stomach, leaning his head back, and closing his eyes with a sigh.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jack whispered finally.

Sebastian opened his eyes and glared at him. “Uncultured swine.”

“You knew that before you dragged me here.”

He didn’t answer, but closed his eyes again and sank further into his seat.

Jack’s gaze flicked back up to the woman on the stage doing whatever had Sebastian in some sort of euphoria. No, she wasn’t Jack’s type. Not even close. He didn’t know from good, bad, or indifferent dress colors, although he did find her white shirt peeking out from her slit sleeve to be distracting. But there was something about her …

No, he didn’t know what he was listening to nor did he care, but now she was up and down that keyboard, pounding into it one minute, then light as a feather the next, her fingers at turbo speed. Her face was red and in some places, she closed her eyes, pointing her face up into the rafters and swaying like Stevie Wonder.

It wasn’t the music.

It couldn’t be the music.

And it couldn’t be her, that short, plump little dirty-blonde, who was nothing like what Jack liked.

It couldn’t be Ramona because she wasn’t here.

He didn’t know what it was, but he was hard as a rock and ready to bend Lydia Charbonneau over that fucking piano and play her.

God, he hoped she got this job, and she would even if he had to find out whose strings to pull and how hard.

And she kept going and going and going …

She was pouring more passion into that piano than his last four girlfriends put together had shown in bed. Or ever. And she looked like she was on the edge of orgasm.

Or about to break out in sobs, because her cheeks were wet and that wasn’t sweat.

The concert went on for a while. The music itself was mind-numbingly boring and he might have left, except the way she was responding to the music she was playing was surreal. That woman wasn’t a soothing spa experience as she’d presented herself. She was a fucking carnival, which made him wonder what she’d be like in bed.

Naked.

Writhing.

Hot, sweaty, red-faced, and sobbing from pure sensation when she came, arching her back, panting his name, her arms up over her head like he’d tied them there.

Shit, did everyone think of music in sexual terms?

Sebastian was still half lying in his chair as if he were basking in the sun, which meant Jack didn’t have to hide his reaction to her. With barely a blip, she went right into the next thing, which, apparently, Sebastian did not approve of because he opened his eyes and sat up a little.

Jack didn’t bother to ask what she’d done or why it was bad.

She did stop when she was done with that one. Then started on the next—and hopefully last, because this one was really boring. It was fast. That was about all Jack could discern. And there was no passion with this one. Or at least, that was the way Jack heard it, as compared to the first two things. She was up and down the keyboard, yes, but it was bland. Like tofu. It was just … there.

“I hate this piece,” Sebastian whispered. “Boring as hell.”

Oh, good. That gave Jack permission to hate it, too, and he did because it just killed the hard-on he had for her. He scowled. That was probably a good thing.

“Dr. Charbonneau.”

CRASH

Again.

There was silence in the hall.

“Yes?” came her small voice.

All that noise from the fingers of such a small woman with such a small voice.

“Thank you. We’ve heard enough.”

Sebastian’s groan was almost silent. Jack would have groaned, too, but Sebastian had done it for him.

Suddenly, Jack felt really, really sorry for her.

She rose, bowed slightly, said, “Thank you,” and walked off the stage with impressive dignity.

The jurors stood up, and Jack recognized one of them. “Be right back,” he muttered.

He slid down the row and sauntered down the aisle toward his target, a man on Juilliard’s board who owed Jack’s father a favor. A big one.

Sorry, Dad.

“Hey, Bobby,” Jack said with just the right amount of cheerful bluster, offering his hand.

“Oh, hey, Fourth. What brings you by?”

“Dr. Charbonneau’s audition. You know, moral support.”

Bobby stilled a little. “You know her?”

Jack shook his head. “Neh. Met her today. Friend of a friend situation. You know.”

Bobby looked up and over Jack’s shoulder. Jack looked there too. Sebastian and Lydia stood together, their backs to the stage, his arm wrapped around her and hugging her to him.

“Is that Taight?” Bobby asked low.

Jack turned back to him and said, “Yep. She’s his cousin. Or cousin’s friend. Or college roommate. Something. Very protective of her. You know how that goes.”

Bobby pursed his lips and nodded slightly. “Yeah, sure do. Nice to see you, Fourth. Say hi to Third for me.”

“Sure will. Don’t be a stranger.”

---

2: COEFFICIENT OF VARIATION

“OH, HEY, JACK,” Sebastian said the next day as he, Jack’s COO Melinda, and her venture capitalist boyfriend were sifting through paperwork on the conference table. “Lydia got a call-back audition for tomorrow.”

Jack, pacing the room while studying a report, said, “Yeh?” with slightly interested nonchalance.

“Yeah,” Sebastian answered. “I noticed Bob Haleh was on the jury. Did you say hi for me too?”

“Absolutely.”

“Excellent. Thank you.”

Jack looked up at him. “Does that thing she does with her eyes work on women?”

Sebastian shrugged. “Maybe? Not sure. You can ask her yourself,” he muttered, turning away with a gesture toward the hallway outside the conference room. “She’s meeting me for lunch.”

Jack thought he was about as jaded about women’s fashion as one could get, but his jaw dropped on the floor when she stepped out of the elevator lobby, looked left then right, and started toward them.

“Good God,” Jack whispered.

“Is that her?” Melinda asked. “The Munchkin in the biker leathers?”

Sebastian looked over his shoulder. “Aw, shit,” he muttered. “If she thinks I’m riding bitch, she’s got another think coming.”

“That’s interesting,” Melinda’s boyfriend drawled.

Jack gulped. The only time he saw women dressed like that was during some city-wide biker rally to “raise awareness” for something or on a film set or on a catwalk with a designer who’d decided to be “edgy” that season.

He did not expect to see one striding confidently through a floor packed with traders, a (completely fake) serene smile on her face, her dirty-blonde curls bouncing, leaving men gaping in her wake. She was a piano teacher, for God’s sake! They weren’t allowed to wear leathers!

Jack couldn’t say a word when she finally opened the conference room door and strutted in.

“I hope you found somewhere to put that thing where nobody’ll steal it,” Sebastian grumbled.

“Oh, no,” she returned calmly. “It’s just out front, although I had to tell the security desk I’m with you. My eyes only got me fifteen minutes.”

“You’re slipping,” Sebastian said.

“No, I’m lazy. Hello again, Jack,” she said politely, turning those supposed-to-be-magical eyes on him. They were no different from yesterday.

Honestly, Jack didn’t need hypnotic eyes to make him stare at her dumbfounded. She returned his look with that same blank expression, as if she were patiently waiting for him to speak but not at all curious about what he had to say. Finally he gestured toward her helmet. “You … rode?”

“Oh, yes,” she said amiably enough.

“You— All the way from— Where are you from?”

She smiled as if soothing a frightened child. “Kansas.”

“On a motorcycle?”

“Oh, yes,” she replied calmly. “It’s a very common thing.”

“Do you even have a car?”

“Yes,” she murmured without a shred of feeling.

“That’s getting on my nerves,” Jack snapped.

Her eyes widened a little, again as if she were trying to communicate something. “What, precisely, is getting on your nerves?”

“Your condescension. It’s fucking annoying, and I will not be condescended to.”

Sebastian’s head snapped toward him and Jack was gratified that Ms Charbonneau stepped back, surprised but not alarmed.

“I apologize,” she said hesitantly. “Most men are uncomfortable with me at first, so I talk that way to put them at ease.”

“Why are they uncomfortable?” Jack demanded. “Sebastian said you do something with your eyes.”

She blinked rapidly and her mouth fell open. “Uh … I— I don’t know what it is. They’ve always done that and … I … don’t know,” she finished weakly. “A doctor said it was an idiopathic physiological anomaly, which meant they didn’t know and didn’t care because we didn’t have enough money to run any tests.”

Jack grunted. “Of course.”

“You don’t see that?” Sebastian demanded.

“No, I don’t see it,” Jack sniped over his shoulder. “She’s got gray eyes. There’s nothing special about them, much less mystical.”

“I’m right here,” she said dryly.

Yes, indeed, she was now here.

“Bucho will demonstrate,” Sebastian said and turned to Melinda’s boyfriend. “This is Lydia. Lydia, Danielo Bustamante, also known as Bucho.”

Jack watched Bucho do the same fucking thing the guy at the audition did yesterday. “Madre de dios, that’s creepy,” the man breathed as he shook her hand.

She chuckled politely and Jack wondered if he was the only person in this room who could tell she was irritated.

“Does that work on women?” Jack asked again.

“Occasionally. I can’t detect a pattern with women, though.”

“Lemme see,” Melinda said as she skirted the table and came around to shake her hand.

“Aaannd Melinda Newman, Chief Operations Officer.”

That was when Jack could tell Lydia had turned the corner into pissed off.

“Hey, you know what?” Jack barked at his three cohorts. “She’s not a fucking attraction in a fucking freak show at a fucking circus. Back off.”

Lydia cast him a look of surprise mixed with a good bit of relief and gratitude, but the other three gave him various looks of confusion and annoyance.

Jack looked at the little piano teacher in the tight leathers and muttered, “I’m sorry about yesterday. For what it’s worth, I liked the purple.”

She gave him a soft, warm smile that nearly knocked him on his ass. He was so shocked, he did stare at her blankly for a second or two. “Thank you,” she murmured, her voice as sincere and warm as her smile. “I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” he said gruffly, then gestured to her leathers. “We can take you to lunch downstairs. Won’t have to ride anywhere and my black magic’d security guard won’t lose his job.”

“We?” Sebastian drawled.

“Yeah,” Jack returned snidely. “I gotta eat, too, yanno.”

“Sure,” she said brightly. “I wasn’t going to make Sebastian ride bitch.”

“The leathers will get you the side-eye.”

“Meh,” Sebastian said. “One look in her eyes, and they’ll welcome her with leis and hula dancers.”

Jack snorted. “Yeah, okay. Whatever.”

“He’s not joking,” Bucho said.

But Jack slid her a glance and felt almost privileged that he was the only person in this room she’d turned that warm, bright smile on. He winked at her as if they were sharing a secret because fuck him if he’d ever met anyone who was that happy to meet him. Or at all.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said and headed off toward the conference room door ahead of her.

“Offer her your arm, dickhead,” Sebastian said with weary impatience.

“She’s got leathers on. She should be offering me her arm.”

Lydia burst out laughing and Jack grinned, watching her laugh, shaking his head slightly in amazement that this woman was the same one who’d fallen apart on stage yesterday. She cast a glance at Sebastian, then approached Jack and cheekily offered her arm. He snorted. “No,” he said dryly, splaying his hand out over her leather-covered back and gently directing her through the door.

He kept his hand on her back and pressed a little closer as they walked down the hallway toward the elevator.

“How did you know I was mad?” she asked him.

“I’m a salesman. I can read people and it was written all over your face.”

“Well, thank you. I like to try being polite before I pull down a fully stocked back bar.”

He laughed. “Little bit of a drama queen in you, eh?”

“More than a little. Sebastian doesn’t know that.”

“Neither does anybody else, I bet,” he said throatily.

“Score a few for you,” she cooed. “I could wear a floor-length headdress of yellow feathers and nobody would believe it.”

“Would you? Wear yellow feathers in your hair?”

“With a dress cut down to there,” she shot back.

“All right, Lola,” he drawled, which earned him another delighted grin. They rounded the corner and he hit the down button. “You got a Tony stashed away somewhere?”

She coughed into her fist, but she couldn’t hide her laugh. “Um. Sort of. Not … exactly. Kind of.”

Fuck. “Husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, ex, stalker, or unrequited crush?”

“None of the above. In-joke.”

“Oh, good. Wanna lemme in?”

She looked at him, trying not to laugh again, and he raised an eyebrow. “Not today,” she said, then did laugh at Jack’s you coward look. “Too much backstory for lunch with a new friend.”

That was all Jack needed to know. “Yeah, okay, we’ll get back to that friends thing later. I heard you got a call-back tomorrow.”

“I did,” she purred. “I don’t know who owed whom what favors, but thank you.”

“Least I could do.”

“Yes,” she agreed with a smirk. “It was.”

“What’s up with that, though?” They stepped into the elevator. “You’re a concert pianist who can’t concert piano?”

She smiled wryly. “It’s just one of my quirks, but it hasn’t been a professional problem because I don’t teach performance. I sent tapes, so I don’t know why they had to have a live audition for non-performing teaching positions.”

“So how are you going to do tomorrow?”

“Terribly,” she said matter-of-factly, which Jack found sad. “I really do appreciate the second chance, but it won’t make any difference. They interrupted me in the middle of a piece that should’ve gotten me the job just from my tapes.”

“So what are you going to do after tomorrow?”

“I’m here for a week or so. Maybe two, depending. I like New York, so I’ll stay and enjoy myself. Do all the touristy artsy stuff.”

“By yourself?”

“Oh, no. With Sebastian. He’s all about artsy stuff.”

Jack’s eyebrow rose. “Um … You? Sebastian?”

She waved a hand. “No. We have similar interests and we enjoy each other’s company, but there’s no chemistry there.”

Good, because there was a whole elevator full of chemistry between Jack and this little amusement park disguised as a piano teacher.

“Sebastian said you teach math classes at NYU, so you’re part of academia, too?”

Jack nodded. Normally he’d leave it at that because most people had no idea what he was talking about. “Quantitative and mathematical finance,” he said. “I don’t have a PhD—don’t want one, either—so I’m just a lowly instructor.”

“You get paid in ego strokes.”

He laughed. “Yeah. Pretty much. So tell me more about this eye thing.”

She shrugged. “I’ve been told it’s like the aurora borealis. I don’t know how it works, though. The doctor thought it was from a head injury I had when I was little.”

“Can you turn it off and on?”

“Sort of,” she said, but stopped because the elevator had gotten to the executive restaurant floor, and he guided her off. “If a man looks at me long enough,” she continued as they entered the restaurant’s lobby, “I can intensify the effect by not blinking. It keeps me out of a lot of trouble,” she said then stopped and turned, looking at him as if to will him to fall into her eyes the way other men apparently did. They looked like regular eyes. No kaleidoscope. No hypnotic swirls. Just eyes.

He shook his head, totally mystified. “I wasn’t invited to the party, I guess.”

She blinked then, rapidly, several times, then laughed. “Dries them out, though. I go through Visine like crazy. I need some now, actually.”

“That’s what you get for trying to voodoo me.”

Her smile was broad, her ordinary gray eyes sparkling in the light from overhead like anybody’s did when they were happy.

“Point me to the restroom?”

“I’ll escort you. They’ll never let you in in that.”

“And they’ll let me in with you?”

“My name’s on the building, sweetheart. I can do what I want.”

---

3: WHO SHOT WHO?

IT HAD BEEN A long time since a man had intrigued Lydia enough to keep company with him outside of work. Jack’s only real flaw was that he looked uncomfortably like the Tony of her childhood. He was East Indian, dark, about five-nine (which was still a lot taller than she was), solid, and carried his custom-tailored suit, tie, Rolex, and cufflinks very well. His stride was long and quick, he was thrumming with energy, he was charismatically coarse and crass, his accent was a strange mix of Manhattan bark and Ivy League hauteur with a hint of British, and he could look in her eyes without falling in.

He was even irritated that people insisted they saw something when he couldn’t, so clearly everyone around him was on hallucinogenic drugs. And the way he’d noticed she didn’t like being an exhibit and stepped in …

No, he couldn’t see the thing her eyes did. He could see her. The real her.

“Tell me about your math classes,” she said once they were seated in a quiet, out-of-the-way circle booth, with the waitstaff falling all over itself for him. She shifted and her leather jacket creaked quite loudly.

“Hey, lemme help you with that,” he said, reaching for her collar and peeling it off her with no grace whatsoever, catching her in it like a fish in a net, making her ow when he twisted her shoulder, making her laugh, especially when he knocked over a water glass with his elbow. “Ah, shit,” he muttered, looking down at his lap. “Fucker makes as much noise as that piano you were thunking all over yesterday,” he said absently as he freed her arms from it and tossed it on the other end of the booth seat.

“I’d pretend to be embarrassed or insulted,” she teased while he patted his wet lap with his napkin, “but that’s my usual performance when a discerning audience is involved.”

“Ouch,” he said good-naturedly as he threw the napkin to the other side of the table. “You sure you don’t want to wait for Sebastian?”

“I believe you told Sebastian to get lost. Or did I mishear?”

He grinned. “You did not.”

She tucked a fingertip in her mouth and gave him a coy look that made him start laughing.

“Yeh, hey,” Jack said to the waiter who brought their bread. “Go tell security that the bike out front is to stay put and be guarded like it’s the baby Jesus. If they have to bring it in and park it in the lobby, that’s what they better fucking do—with white gloves on.”

“Yes, Mr. Blackwood.”

Lydia laughed and he leaned against her with a mischievous smile, the faint scent of his heady but understated cologne feeling like a soft kiss. “So,” he said as he reached for the bread and broke off a small piece, offering it to her. She opened her mouth a little and he popped it in, his lids lowered. “If I tell you about my classes, are you going to start dozing? Because usually, people only ask me that if they’ve got a bad case of insomnia they want me to cure.”

She laughed again, looking into his warm brown eyes because she could. “Do you know anything about music?”

“No. I am an uncultured swine.”

“Well, as a theorist, I teach an odd form of math. You work in base-10, no?”

He was watching her intently. Listening to her. “Most of the time. Sometimes I teach discrete math, which is binary.”

“Okay. And time is measured in base-60.”

“Right.”

“For actually playing music, we have labels. But depending on which style of music I’m working with, it could be expressed as base-8, base-5, etc. Theory is the math, in a manner of speaking. So, I may be able to understand what you do without needing a shot of espresso.”

His smile was beautiful, white and straight, flashing in his dark face. Yes, he did look like Tony, but Tony had been a stud in his time. It wasn’t Jack’s fault she had overdosed on Tony stories before she was ten, and it wasn’t her fault that Jack was drop-dead gorgeous.

He started to launch into an explanation, but it was interrupted by this waiter and that waiter and having to decide what to eat, but Lydia didn’t bother to look at the menu.

“Filet mignon. Salad, bleu cheese.” Toothbrush. Lifesavers. Condoms.

“A woman who knows what she wants,” Jack purred.

Lydia cocked an eyebrow at him.

“To eat,” he clarified.

“I always know what I want,” she said throatily.

He cast her a grin then ordered what she had. “Wine?”

“No, I’m driving. Coke’s fine. You?”

“Sprite. I don’t drink much. Messes with my head. Can’t afford it in the daytime and keeps me up at night. Also, no caffeine after two p.m. Word to the wise: The chocolate soufflé here is brilliant.”

“Count me in, then.”

The waiter got all that squared away, bowed a little, took their menus and vanished.

“Math later,” he said. “It’s less interesting than a piano teacher roadtripping on a Hog or dog or scooter or whatever it is.”

She smiled, pleased he was steering the conversation in her direction first. “Hog,” she confirmed.

“You have tenure at KU, you said? At your audition, I mean.”

She nodded.

“What made you want to change? Other than Kansas being boring as hell.”

That made her laugh, and tried for another piece of bread. He snatched it from her, broke off a piece, and held it to her lips. “Open wide.”

“That’s what she said,” Lydia cooed, making him grin. She ate the piece, then said, “This past year’s been a real drag. I needed a pick-me-up and change of scenery.”

“A new job is a little more than a vacation change of scenery.”

She grimaced a little. “It was an impulse thing. As much of one as it could be, I mean, when you put in for a sabbatical on deadline.”

“What’s been going on all year?”

Aaannnnd now she was again mired in the tar pit she’d come to New York to shake off. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered, turning to her salad.

“Oh, hey, I didn’t mean to dredge anything up,” he said around a bite. “Forget I asked.”

Her mouth twitched not because he’d apologized, but because he’d done it with a mouth full of food. “Thanks. For the record, it’s not because Kansas is boring.”

He snorted. “And the Hog?”

She looked up at the ceiling. “You know,” she mused, trying to remember, “that was an impulse thing, too, although it was on my list.” She looked back at him. “Do you have a list of things you want to do before you die?”

He looked a little taken aback. “No. Who does that?”

That made her laugh, but their main course arrived and she said nothing until the waiters had gone.

“You don’t want to walk the Great Wall of China or star in a movie or something?” she asked and popped a small piece of steak in her mouth.

He shook his head. “Nope. My grand ambition was to be a multimillionaire so I could do anything I wanted and I did that, but then I realized there wasn’t anything else I wanted to do. I like my life.”

His lack of ennui was utterly charming. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-six. You?”

“Thirty-four. And you’re not bored?”

“Nope. My life is boring by most people’s standards, but I am not bored.”

“Do you travel at all?”

“Only when forced.”

“No yacht, no Greek island, no private jet?”

He shook his head.

“You have no curiosity about the world.”

His lids shuttered a little. “Don’t try to shame me with my lack of culture,” he purred. “I can’t be shamed. I am curious about your world, though.”

“Which world?” she asked coyly.

He took a drink of Sprite then said, “I wouldn’t mind learning how to play your piano.”

She’d met few men who were brilliant and so charmingly vulgar that they made her want to play these games. And she’d never met a man she wanted to have sex with as much as this one.

“I … might be able to arrange a lesson,” she returned softly, watching him look at her mouth, then back up into her eyes. She felt a little breathless, her heart picking up a little.

“Today’s Wednesday,” he said huskily. “Can’t book anything until Friday night. I can think of a couple of songs to play to make you feel better before you go home.”

No, he wasn’t the type to fall in love, but as long as she remembered that this would only be a weekend fling, everything would be just fine.

“I got the Hog,” she whispered, suddenly feeling completely free to let loose, “to have something big and powerful between my legs.”

He groaned and half collapsed against the back of the booth and feigned a couple of sobs. “God, I wish I could take you home right now.”

She laughed and relaxed, licking her bottom lip before taking a sip of her Coke. Wishing she’d asked for Lifesavers. And condoms. “I know I can count on the market to keep you on a leash for a while.”

“A fucking piano teacher,” he grumbled good-naturedly, as he sat up and cut another piece of his own steak. “Fucking a piano teacher. That just went on my very short list of the one thing I want to do before I die.”

“Not just any piano teacher, I hope.”

He slid her a look. “Tease.”

“I don’t flirt just to flirt,” she said airily.

“All right, Miz Culture,” he said with faux imperiousness, “where have you been?”

She waved a hand. “Oh, all over Europe. Asia. Australia.” She paused. “I’m thinking about going to India this weekend.”

He barked a laugh. “India certainly does want you to come this weekend. Many times.” She grinned. “Yes, I am a walking fucking stereotype of a rich Indian on Wall Street.”

“You look Latino from a distance.”

He looked shocked. “Really?”

She shrugged. “It’s subtle. I couldn’t describe it.”

“Huh. But nope. My dad’s pasty-white British, but at least he doesn’t glow in the dark like you do.”

“And you have no interest in your heritage at all.”

He shook his head. “I’m an American, sweetheart. A very simple one.”

An adorable one. “And I am a walking stereotype of a corn-fed Kansas farm girl.”

“I’ve got a cob—”

She pressed her finger against his mouth. “Too easy. I love vulgar and clever. I hate boring and stupid.”

“I’m not stupid, but I bore everybody eventually,” he said wryly. “If I haven’t insulted or pissed them off first.”

“Mmm, okay, then. Bore me with your math classes.”

He cast her a look, but it was more serious. “You really want to know.”

Lydia nodded. “Yes. I like listening to different disciplines.”

He opened his mouth to say the obvious, then snapped it shut again with a chuckle.

Lydia smirked. “You learn quickly.”

“All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He launched into a description of the classes he taught. She interrupted with questions here and there, which seemed to surprise him. He answered those, then went on. She asked him what teaching method he used for that concept, which seemed to really shock him. His answer was even more enthusiastic and he was gaining speed, gushing over abstract concepts she only barely grasped. Every time she asked him a question, he got more exuberant.

Then he got to quantitative finance. She couldn’t follow enough to ask questions, but she listened: to his baritone voice, his passion, his pure joy. She watched: his boyish expression of delight, his hands gesturing grandly, his fingers tracing figures in the air. He wasn’t speaking of himself as the topic related to him, wasn’t boasting, wasn’t trying to impress her at all. He was in love with his topic.

He stopped suddenly, looked at her blankly for several seconds, then pronounced, “I just figured out a problem I’ve been working on since grad school.” With that, he snapped his fingers at a waiter and demanded his order pad. Once he had it and the waiter scurried off, he turned it around to face her, scooted closer to her and began to sketch out a complex formula.

With his left hand. Lydia’s smile widened. He continued speaking as he wrote, explaining himself as if she were a student. He’d forgotten she was there, but it didn’t bother her at all because she was fascinated by him. His vibrant voice was filled with the excitement of having solved a problem. His strong hand was drawing fluid Greek symbols and numbers as fast as he spoke, the heel of his hand and snowy white cuff turning blue as he dragged them through the ink. His energy was coursing through his shoulders and arms, pouring out onto the thin paper and wicking into beautiful patterns. He tore the first sheet off and began another, only to be interrupted when the waiters came to clear the table of their empty dishes.

“You don’t have anybody to talk math with, do you?” she asked when he ripped the third sheet off and began a fourth.

He cast her a look of surprise. “Um, no. How’d you know that?”

“You’re not bragging,” she said matter-of-factly. “You love it and you’re just excited to be able talk about it to someone who’ll listen. My discipline’s niche, too, so I get it. Not a whole lot of people you can talk shop with.”

“Well, it’s not like I can talk about this stuff with my girlfriends.”

Lydia’s delight in being in this man’s company vanished.

Her anticipation of the soufflé fled.

She wasn’t sure she could keep down what she’d already eaten.

How in the world could she have forgotten?

Somewhere in between barking at her to quit condescending to him and telling Sebastian to get lost, she’d forgotten …

She was leaving in a week to go home. She’d known he had a girlfriend already, one who’d completely wrecked what little edge she had at yesterday’s audition. He’d even arranged for Lydia to have another audition tomorrow because he knew what a huge gaffe his girlfriend had made.

Why did it hit her so hard? She’d known.

It was the plural.

With his looks and money, and as fast as he had propositioned Lydia, she should have deduced he could and did get any woman he wanted. He was likely juggling more than one.

Girlfriends. Plural.

She took a sip of her Coke. Another.

He went on without noticing she was now not participating in any capacity. There was no way she could endure the rest of this meal.

She looked at her watch and gasped. “Oh, my God!” she squeaked, interrupting a long explanation of the inflation-proof bond which, under other circumstances, she would have enjoyed because, unlike the math, she did understand how the markets worked. “I am so sorry. I’m going to have to go. I completely forgot about a meeting I had with a long-distance colleague.”

His mouth dropped open. His eyebrows rose in shock. “Uh … I— Okay.”

She slid from the booth, stepped over to the other corner and grabbed her jacket. Without looking at him, she struggled into it, and said, “Thank you so much. I enjoyed talking shop with you.”

She cast a smile in his general direction and walked out.

---

4: SCARAMOUCHE

“HEY, ARE YOU planning to go to Lydia’s audition today?” Sebastian asked Jack the next morning.

His jaw ground. There was no way in hell he was going to go to that audition, not after the way she’d run out on him at lunch. “No,” he snapped.

“What’s your problem?”

Jack slammed his hand down on his desk and bellowed the whole thing at Sebastian, who listened stonily without interrupting. Good man, that Sebastian. Then he was finished and Sebastian was still staring at him stonily. “What.”

“You forgot something.”

“What.”

“Let’s see. How did Lydia phrase it? ‘It’s not like I can talk about this stuff with my girlfriends.’”

Jack gnashed his teeth. “That was a compliment.”

“A compliment. I see. Referencing your girlfriends—plural—on a date with a woman who thinks you’re interesting and has more letters after her name than you and who was apparently planning to spend the weekend in bed with you is flattering. And oh, that’s after your current girlfriend trashed her audition, which was why you had to call in a marker owed to your dad to get her another one. Compliment. Yep. I see it. Uh huh.”

Jack stared at him, confused. “It was that bad?”

Sebastian closed his eyes as if pained. “Yes, Jack. It was that bad. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘A man who will cheat with you will cheat on you?’”

Jack felt a tingling of dread. “No.”

“Neither had I. I refrained from telling her you aren’t careful about making sure your girlfriends don’t overlap. You’re welcome.”

“She knew I had a girlfriend when we started flirting!”

“That’s true, and I pointed that out to her. She was so happy to meet a guy who didn’t see her eye thing that she forgot about Ramona. Then you got protective of her with me and Melinda and Bucho. Touchdown with a two-point conversion. But then you reminded her she was just the latest in probably a long line of women you were about to cheat with, so she got off your merry-go-round. That was the word she used.”

Jack wrapped his hand over his mouth and chin and whispered, “Holy shit.”

“You know, at some point, your little black books are going to come back and bite you in the ass, and I’m not talking about your dad’s lectures. I wish she’d handed you your head on a platter, but she’s not a drama queen—”

Oh, bullshit, she wasn’t.

“—or she suspected you got her another chance at—”

Jack growled low in his chest and turned away. “She knew as soon as she got the call-back,” he muttered, pissed. At her—didn’t she know she was different? At Sebastian—for not—for, for, for pointing it out. At himself for being that rusty with nice women. “She’s different!”

“She’s no different from any other nice, intelligent, and sensitive woman, which you wouldn’t know. Your problem is you don’t know how to act around decent women. Frankly, you’re not worthy to be on the same planet with her.”

Jack stood at the floor-to-ceiling wall-to-wall window overlooking East River, one hand propped on his hip and his head down, the other hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

It dismayed him that she and her opinion mattered to him. She wasn’t anything he preferred in women. She was short, chubby, wild-haired, leather-clad, fresh-faced, curvy, bold, funny, nice, interested in what he enjoyed and analytically minded enough to follow about a third of it … Right up to the point he reminded her she wasn’t special.

Except she was.

“How the fuck do you know about women?” he burst out. “You’re shit with them.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “I am not shit with women under the right conditions, and you have seen me work my magic. When I am with a woman, I never fuck up. Furthermore, you pay your women when you’re done with them. I wrap mine up in fantasyland for however many weeks, then send them back out into reality with a healthy self-esteem and a killer attitude.”

Jack snarled at him. It sounded arrogant, but every word of that was true. Sebastian was GQ black-Irish perfect, but got laid less than Jack did because he was shy and he could only turn on the Svengali under controlled circumstances. But Sebastian knew what made women tick, in and out of the board room, in and out of the bedroom and when all the conditions were right, Sebastian turned into something so fucking surreal Jack couldn’t describe it.

“What else did she tell you?”

“Not much. You were talking about math and then you brought other women into the conversation. Crash and burn.”

Jack almost winced. “How pissed was she?”

“Not quite sure. She’s hard to read.”

Bullshit. She was as easy to read as a billboard on Times Square at night.

“Fine,” Jack grumbled. “What time are we leaving?”

Which was how he found himself sitting in the shadows at Juilliard again, slouched down this time, watching her cross the stage in a red bullfighter outfit this time—

“How much does that thing cost?” he asked.

“Right around seven grand.”

—her calf muscles cut in high relief from her red stilettos. The flash of her jacket and the stilettos were her, just like the leathers, matching the rest of her personality. After the way she’d strutted through his trading floor yesterday and her almost immediate acceptance of his proposition, he was now wondering if her stage fright was specific and-or had a trigger.

“This jury,” Jack whispered, leaning into Sebastian while she introduced herself in that irritating monotone that was not her. “Can they play like she does? I mean, are they better than she is?”

“Not sure. I don’t think any of them are performers, if that’s what you’re asking. Why?”

“Is she expected to be perfect?”

Sebastian shrugged. “I don’t see why she would be. Lots of legendary performers make mistakes the audience can hear. Horowitz was famous for making mistakes.”

Jack had no idea who Horowitz was. “I can’t square her yesterday with her on stage. Yesterday, she wanted attention. On stage, she’s—” Jack waved a hand toward her, where she was answering questions in that same monotone. “But she’s wearing fifteen pounds of gold thread. Flamboyant people at the top of their profession don’t suddenly shut down in front of an audience that’s inferior to their skills.”

Sebastian seemed to be at a loss for words. “She dresses flamboyantly, yes, but she is not flamboyant. She’s too cute. Too quiet. Too Zen. Her Zen smothers her flashy clothes.”

How could everyone else be so fucking blind? She wasn’t Zen. She was bored and permanently riding the edge of irritated.

There was a fucking carnival going on inside that cute little body and bottomless brain. And he knew that because her face couldn’t hide a thing. Her voice was throaty, full of color, and dripping sex. Her laugh was like silk. She was all magic, lights, and sparkles—except for her nondescript gray eyes. And her mind— She’d acted like she hadn’t had a good mindfuck in forever, which reminded him that he hadn’t had one in a long time, either.

Until yesterday. God, that had been fantastic and he’d solved that fucking problem, so maybe she did have some sort of black magic thing going on. The only thing that would’ve made it better was if she’d made his dick come at the same time she made his brain come.

That fatal moment in their conversation looped in his head like a fly at a picnic that wouldn’t leave him alone. Ramona—hell, any of the women he’d dated for however long they interested him—would’ve ignored it, missed it, faked a laugh at it, or tolerated it so as to keep him in her sphere whether she liked it or not.

Why did this little piano teacher from Kansas matter so much? She was going home in a week or so, whenever she felt like it, apparently, since she was on sabbatical. Sebastian thought she was too good for Jack. She was shit on a stage and she—

Started playing. Not as badly as she had the day before, certainly. She was a little more relaxed, still hesitant through the first thirty seconds or so, but picked up steam and confidence as she went along. If she hit a wrong note, he wouldn’t know it, so he couldn’t judge that part.

He sat and listened. Bored. He hated this stuff, but here he was, hearing her, but not listening. Watching her. It was dark everywhere but on stage, her gold embroidery glinting in the spotlight.

Not a drama queen, his ass.

She was gaining speed, gaining confidence, visibly starting to forget the jury. She was building to that point where she’d hit her stride like she had two days before when she’d filled the concert hall with noise, passionate noise: her body invested in the keys; her fingers flying and pounding; her feet strategically pressing and stomping on the pedals; her curls bobbing while she fucked that piano and—

He jumped halfway out of his seat when his mobile phone squawked into the darkness.

So did everyone else.

CRASH

Again.

He scrambled for his phone, hearing Sebastian swearing at him, getting it out of his coat pocket, fumbling it, dropping it with a loud clatter. It squawked again before he got it turned off, but it was too late. He looked up to see her hands hit the keyboard again so hard the lid dropped on her knuckles. Her shriek of pain shot through him like a bullet.

She jerked her hands out from under the wood and cradled them to her breast, her head bowed, her body rocking slowly, her back and chest heaving.

Sebastian shot out of his seat and ran down the aisle while Jack sat motionless, horrified, watching his closest—only—friend (relatively speaking) vault himself up onto the stage and pull her up gently, turning her, guiding her off the stage, hiding her from the audience of a dozen discerning musicians and one uncultured swine.

He dropped his head into his palm.

“Good job, Fourth,” Bobby Helah called back to him. “Always count on you to come through in a clutch. Tell your dad hi for me.”

He was going to put that motherfucker in the poorhouse before the month was out.

---

5: LAW OF INFERNAL DYNAMICS

“I HATE THIS PLACE,” Lydia gritted through her tears as Sebastian ran her hands under cold water. “I hate that man. I hate these people. I hate this city.”

Sebastian didn’t say anything, his hands gentle and comforting, the cold water soothing. They were in an out-of-the-way women’s restroom and she hoped none of the female jurors would walk in and see more of her humiliation.

“Flex,” he murmured. “Fist.”

She did. Slowly. “Nothing’s broken,” she muttered. “It’d take an elephant to break my fingers.”

“Good thing you don’t have to play any time soon,” he muttered.

“Why is he here?” she growled, but it lost something in the translation when she hiccupped then coughed on it.

“My fault. I let him come with me in case you’d be willing to listen to him grovel for yesterday.”

She blinked and looked at Sebastian, but he was blurry in her tears. “Grovel?”

“Yeah, I had to explain that it wasn’t polite to talk about one’s girlfriends to a woman one finds intriguing, funny, nice, hot, and, most importantly, smart.”

“What did he say?” she asked cautiously.

“He was pissed. Ran the whole thing down. I damn near put his head through the window, but you know, Jack is who he is, and sometimes I forget there’s a reason nobody can stand him.”

Lydia thought about that for a while as Sebastian continued to gently massage her knuckles under the cold water. Really cold water. It felt sooo good.

“Um. Did— Um, did he want to grovel?”

“Yes.”

Her brow wrinkled.

“The truth is, he uses women like paper towels to wipe off his dick. Women like you, nice ones, smart ones, ones you take home to Mom, know that. They can’t stomach him, and they shouldn’t. The only women who will are ones who have their own agenda. It may or may not include marriage but if so, it’s not for love. They’re not stupid. They’re opportunistic, which suits him to a T.

“But to be fair, it was over before he met you and he broke up with her Tuesday night. He hadn’t gotten around to giving her the diamond bracelet, which was in his pocket, and she wasn’t going to break it off before she got it. Ramona’s no more cultured than Jack, but she came along because she wanted a shot at me. Jack knew that. He didn’t care.”

Now she was just confused. “Then why did he bring her?”

“He had a lot on his mind and he didn’t want to argue about it.”

She swallowed. Hard. “Oh.”

He paused. “Yesterday, you both made it clear that you didn’t want me at lunch, which was fine. What you have to remember is that with him, what you see is what you get. I honestly don’t know why a woman like you would be attracted to him, but you’re an adult and it’s not my place to get in your way or shove him at you. I’m giving you information anybody would need to make an informed decision.”

Lydia sat silent for a while, letting Sebastian tend her knuckles, thinking about that. What did she see in Jack? Or was he just the first bit of fresh air she’d had in months?

Years.

You’re on the rebound from your grief, Buttercup.

She sighed when her late father’s voice popped up in her head, right on cue.

Deal with it directly.

She wasn’t allowed to deal with her grief directly. The people forcing her to wallow in it made sure she didn’t have a chance to grieve at all, much less go through the whole process.

Fine. But having sex with that dickhead isn’t the way to do it.

So she wanted to have sex with a hot guy who made her laugh. What was wrong with that?

I could accept that if you had ever had sex just because you wanted to and not because you were looking for love in all the wrong places.

Once, in an adolescent fit of pique, Lydia had demanded to know where he got off giving her relationship advice when he’d never had a relationship.

The tirade that had followed—

I am not going to be led around by the dick by some cunt who puts her ambition over me! Fuck her if she can’t leave hers to be with me! Thinking she can top me! Who the goddamn fuck does she think she is?!

Clearly, Mingo had not wanted to discuss that, so she’d never asked again.

Mingo? You mad at me, Buttercup?

She’d been mad at him for the last year.

I died ten years ago.

Thirteen. But her grief and anger had surfaced again last year and had been simmering all year long.

There was a small tapping at the door, which startled her. “Ah, Lydia, can I come in without getting firebombed? I brought your stuff.”

Lydia cleared her head then heaved a sigh. Of what, she didn’t know. Frustration. Anger. Humiliation. Confusion.

Cautious delight.

“Lydia?” Sebastian asked low. She nodded wearily. “Yeah,” he called.

Lydia wouldn’t look at Jack. She couldn’t. Her backpack with her change of clothes and shoes plopped on the floor by her stockinged feet. It almost didn’t surprise her when Sebastian stood and made way for darker hands to caress her knuckles under the water.

“Ow!” she screeched when he pressed too hard, and jerked her hands back, glaring up at him. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded.

“Jack,” Sebastian drawled with irritation.

Jack dropped back against the wall, his head thunking back against the old tile. “God, kill me now.”

“I think Lydia’s about to play God.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said wearily, looking up at the ceiling, his hands in his pockets. “For everything.”

Lydia watched him, watched the play of expression on his face. He was embarrassed, which she suspected he didn’t feel often. He was penitent, also something she didn’t think he had much experience with. He was uncertain, as foreign to him as the other two. She slid a glance at Sebastian and tilted her head a little.

There was silence in the room when the door closed softly behind Sebastian. Lydia put her hands back under the water and watched as Jack turned and took her hands softly, cupping one of his hands in the water and pouring it over her knuckles.

“That feels good,” Lydia whispered. “Thank you.”

He said nothing, gently tucked her hands back into her breastbone, turned the water off, shook his hands out and pulled paper towels from the dispenser. He crumpled them for makeshift bandages, looked at them, then chucked them in the trash. He loosened the knot of his tie and pulled it from around his neck, then took her hands and wrapped her knuckles in the silk. “I only have one tie,” he muttered. “I’m sorry it looks like I’m tying you up for a fun night of bondage. Although I’d like to if you’re into that.”

Lydia laughed, shocked, because it had come out of his mouth so easily.

He slid a glance at her, his faint smile uncertain. “I’m a dick,” he said wryly.

“I know.”

“Let me take you to lunch? Sebastian can come this time and keep my mouth under control.”

This was a bad idea. He looked like Tony. He acted like Rico. She didn’t want to date a Tony. She didn’t want to date a Rico. She sure as hell didn’t want to date a hybrid. And Sebastian, who apparently knew him better than anybody else did, didn’t want her and Jack in the same airspace.

On the other hand, if all she really wanted was a respite from her troubles, did it matter if Jack was juggling a few girlfriends as long as he was disease-free? He’d popped up like an oasis of fun and color and laughter in the middle of her emotional desert and, okay, so what if she needed grief therapy? He couldn’t be worse than any of the many therapists she’d gone through.

“Um … okay.” She paused. “Can you, um … help me with my shoes?”

Without a word, he crouched and rummaged through her backpack. When he pulled her Keds out, he stuffed her stilettos in the pack, then carefully put her tennies on, caressing her calves, ankles, and feet. She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling his fingers in the curves of her Achilles tendon, the arch of her foot, gently massaging, working the knots out.

God, just the caring touch of another human, sexually attractive or not, was pure heaven. She didn’t realize how little of it she’d had in years, didn’t realize how much she needed it.

“Thank you,” she whispered after a while, opening her eyes when he finally tied her shoes.

“You’re welcome,” he said gruffly, standing, throwing the pack over his shoulder and helping her keep her balance with her hands in front of her as they were.

The three of them were totally silent as they rode in Jack’s car to a trendy restaurant. None of them were going to force conversation, which was both good and bad. The silence wasn’t pressing. It was the silence of people cooling off, sorting things out in their heads so they could begin to talk and sort it out together.

Lydia was cradling her hands in Jack’s tie. He was beside her, but not touching her. He was looking out the window. Sebastian was on her left, also staring out the window, his right ankle on his left knee.

It was one of the most awkward social situations Lydia had ever been in, yet being in it meant that there was value here. Somewhere. They just had to find it. Jack helped her out of the car when they drove up to the curb. She unwrapped her hands and gave him the tie, because he’d need it to get into the restaurant. It was crumpled. Ruined. It looked awful. Her mouth twisted. He shrugged. “My fault.”

Well, yes. It was.

“How are your hands?”

“Better,” she said, which was true. “Can you ask about Tylenol or something?”

“Sure.”

He gestured for her to precede him, but didn’t touch her. He could barely look at her, in fact, and that hurt, because he couldn’t see whatever her eyes did but now he was acting like every other man who couldn’t look in her eyes.

Jack spoke for a party of three, but the maître d’ ignored him, asked Sebastian how many people were in the party, and informed him there was a two-hour wait. Sebastian scowled and threw his thumb at Jack. “He already told you that, asshole, and he’s the one paying the bill and don’t give me any bullshit about being backed up. It’s the middle of the fucking afternoon.”

Jack smirked when the man flushed and finally looked at him, although not in his eyes. Lydia watched this byplay, shocked. This was New York. Jack was expensively dressed.

“I’d rather go somewhere else,” Lydia said abruptly. “An Indian place.” She hated Indian food.

Jack, Sebastian, and the maître d’ all gaped at her. She sneered at the maître d’ slightly. “Direct us to a restaurant with a staff that can hide its racism better than you can. If you can’t look at an expensively dressed man and tell to the penny how much he’s worth and how that affects you, you need to be washing dishes in Hell’s Kitchen.”

“I can make that happen,” Sebastian drawled.

It was the shortest two-hour wait in history.

The three of them were silent as they were seated less than five minutes later, except when Jack requested Tylenol for Lydia, which was brought post haste. Suddenly, Jack was being fawned over as lavishly as he had been in the executive restaurant at Blackwood Securities.

“Uh … ” Sebastian ventured finally. “You noticed that?”

“Clearly,” she muttered angrily, looking down to fix her napkin. She now didn’t know whom or what she was mad at. “That doesn’t happen at home. At least, not in my milieu.”

“It was a lot more subtle than it usually is.”

Lydia didn’t respond.

“Thanks,” Jack drawled, “but if it doesn’t affect my bank account, I don’t give a fat rat’s ass.”

“It’s not about you,” she said tightly.

“Oh. Huh. I don’t know what that means, but just because I’m Indian doesn’t mean I like Indian food.”

She looked up at him and said testily, “I wasn’t making assumptions. I was making a point. You’re a McDonald’s guy. Cheap, fast, and easy.”

Sebastian started laughing, and Jack’s slow, delighted grin made Lydia catch her breath.

Again.

Oh, God.

“You’re back,” he said huskily, his eyelids shuttering.

She felt herself flush and looked away. She needed to go home. Now.

“Yeah, so speaking of cheap, fast, and easy, how ’bout a chocolate soufflé? It’s the only reason I come here, and I owe you one.”

“I’d rather have lemon.”

He blinked, surprised. “You were okay with chocolate yesterday.”

“They didn’t have lemon,” she said wryly.

“How’d you know that? You didn’t even look at the menu.”

She began to chuckle. “I had lunch there Monday.”

“Sneaky.”

The ice was breaking. Slowly.

A waiter came around to take their order, but when he informed them they didn’t have lemon soufflé, Jack said, “You do today.”

“Yes, Mr. Blackwood, sir.”

Lydia gaped at the waiter’s back, then caught Jack’s smirk. “It didn’t take them long to figure that out, did it?”

She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. “How … ?”

“I told you I come here for the chocolate soufflé. Best in town. That maître d’ is new. He’ll be fired by the time we leave.” At her surprised look, he said, “No, I’m not going to say anything. I don’t give a shit. The head waiter who knows me saw it, but you stepped in before he could.”

At her silence, because she had no words, he purred with a slight sneer, “I put this place on the map.”

“Because of chocolate soufflé,” she replied softly, charmed and unable to help her little smile.

The corner of his mouth tilted up and his sneer went away. “Yeh.”

“Say, Lyds,” Sebastian cut in with feigned nonchalance, “what are your plans tomorrow?”

He knew very good and well what her plans were because he’d built the itinerary. But he was trying to keep the awkward silence from taking hold again. “The biggest thing,” she said while rearranging her napkin again, “is tickets for Show Boat. I have an appointment to see a Bösendorfer—a piano,” she added quickly for Jack’s benefit. “I’m looking for one that’ll fit in my house.”

She could feel him watching her carefully, listening to her even though to her ears, she was simply babbling to fill the silence.

“I like Show Boat,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t mind piano shopping. As long as I don’t have to listen to a concert. I hate that shit.”

That made her laugh. “Okay,” she whispered as she met his gaze, this man who could see who she was and appreciate her for it. He was an awful man—and she didn’t care. They stayed that way for several seconds, looking at each other soberly, trying to negotiate a truce silently, with a mediator biased for Lydia in case anything went wrong.

“Jack!”

Which, of course, it did.

Lydia’s mouth tightened at the sound of Ramona’s voice coming from the lobby of the restaurant, and she sank back into her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Aw, shit,” Sebastian muttered, throwing his napkin in his place setting and sitting back.

Jack simply closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose.

“Jack!” she called again as she closed the distance between the door and their table. She stopped short when she saw Lydia, but then her expression changed to one of hopeful penitence. “Um. Hi again,” she said gingerly.

“Hi,” Lydia returned, noting the diamond bracelet on her wrist.

With a cute little huff, she shooed Sebastian into the chair next to Jack and she took Sebastian’s seat. “I am so sorry,” Ramona said, grasping her hands.

Lydia yelped and snatched her hands back.

“Um … ”

“I injured them,” she explained, struggling not to scream at Ramona just for existing, and cautiously held them out for her to see.

They were purpling nicely and Ramona grimaced. “That looks painful.”

Lydia couldn’t look at Jack because there was no way any of this could be salvaged now. No Show Boat, no piano shopping with a guy who hated good music, no weekend in bed with a brilliant, hot guy who saw her, knew her, made her laugh. “Yes.”

And that was all Ramona needed to start filling the silence with chatter directed at anybody willing to listen about that time she also smashed her hand and how much she empathized. It apparently escaped the woman’s notice that nobody at the table was having a good time.

Sebastian was silent. Jack was silent. Lydia had nothing to say.

Therefore, when a fifth wheel rolled up to their table, all three of them jumped, startled. Ramona did stop chattering, but she gave the intruder—another leggy blonde also with a diamond bracelet on her wrist—an incendiary glare.

“Oh, Ramona!” the woman cooed, glancing acidly at Ramona’s wrist. “I didn’t know you knew Jack. Jack!”

His voice chock full of weary resignation, Jack sighed. “Ah, yeah, hi, Paula.”

“Hi Sebastian!” she said.

“Hi, Paula,” he returned tightly.

“I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Cut the crap. You followed us in here.”

“Oh, I did not, silly,” she tittered, looking at Lydia. “Who’s your … lovely … girlfriend, Jack?”

The contempt in Paula’s voice was thick and Lydia was way beyond her capacity for politeness. “Could you be more of a cliché?”

Jack barked a laugh. Sebastian gaped at her. Ramona started to snicker. Paula flushed a little.

But she recovered and sneered at Lydia. “I don’t look like a Munchkin.”

“I am adorably cute, not—” Here she swept Paula up and down. “—a forty-nine-dollar blowup doll on clearance.” Her mouth dropped open. “Either you need to sue your surgeon for malpractice or learn how to pad a bra. Your boobs are lopsided.”

Ramona cackled viciously. By this time, Sebastian was laughing. Jack’s eyebrows were up to his hairline, looking at Lydia with that gorgeous grin.

“Shoo, fly,” Lydia drawled with bored hauteur and a dismissive wave of a hand. “You’re bothering me.”

“God, you’re a bitch,” she snarled.

“An adorably cute one.”

“Bye, darling,” Ramona cooed.

Paula flounced off, leaving Lydia’s tablemates amused and looking to her for more entertainment, but Lydia was bored, depressed, angry, and tired. Tired of this stupid little soap opera.

“Thank you all,” Lydia said as she stood, gathering up her purse and backpack. “I’m very tired and I need to tend my hands.”

“I’ll take you.”

Lydia and Sebastian looked at Jack, surprised. “Um … ” Lydia’s mouth opened and closed. “I don’t want to impose. Market’s still open, right?”

“No.”

Didn’t matter. It was too late. Too many obstacles, too much history gathered in too little time. “I know my way around New York, but thanks. And thanks for lunch.”

That hadn’t arrived.

She left as quickly as she could, before she said something she would regret, like Yes, Jack, thank you. Stay the night?

---

6: TIN MAN

JACK SURREPTITIOUSLY watched Lydia walk out, her generous ass and hips in that tight gold-encrusted red satin doing a number on his libido for reasons he couldn’t fathom. Ramona was still laughing and asking Sebastian where he met Lydia.

“Friend of a cousin who happened to become my friend too.”

“Oh, that’s nice! Not often you can be friends with your family’s friends. Or friends’ friends.” And Ramona’s mouth started running again.

Jack was still reeling from his inexplicable attraction to that cute little piano teacher, coming to his defense at a tiny manifestation of disdain for his ethnicity then slam-dunking Paula, which was not only hilarious but had saved him from having to deal with a cat fight between two women he’d had sex with while the one he now wanted to have sex with watched.

He should’ve told Lydia he’d broken it off with Ramona, but she knew. She’d noted the women’s bracelets with a slight sneer and seething contempt. For them. For him.

There was no way he could salvage this now. Lydia was too sure of herself, her place in the world, her superiority to the types of women Jack dated, her superiority to him.

“Jack?”

“She’s funny,” Jack said vaguely, turning back to his meal when Ramona pressed him for an opinion. Oh, he had an opinion. He just didn’t know what it was yet.

“Adorably cute, too, but not your type.”

“Nope,” Jack affirmed firmly. He and Ramona were officially done, so why she wanted his confirmation, he didn’t know. “Hey, look, I need to get back to the office, but I need the walk.”

“Oh, good. Just me and Sebastian.”

Sebastian’s mouth tightened. Jack stood.

“Bye, Jack!” Ramona trilled.

Jack didn’t bother to answer.

His hands buried in his pockets and his head down, feeling very much like a beaten dog, he left the restaurant and shuffled down the street to walk off some of his tension and sort out his confusion about this person he was attracted to in spite of the fact that she wasn’t opportunistic, wasn’t beautiful or leggy or blonde blonde—a cheap blowup doll—he smiled a little—was interested in what he had to say, a cultured college professor, and a vindictive bitch.

Watching her display her alpha like that—twice—was almost as hot as watching her fuck that piano.

Yesterday, she’d been thrilled to meet him in spite of the fact that he was rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. They’d had a good time together at lunch, talking, dancing through the sexual tension that surrounded them like a thick fog, knowing that when Friday night came, so would they.

Until he’d fucked it up.

And continued fucking it up until now all he wanted to do was punch something.

Jack went by boutiques selling overpriced tchotchkes and purses. He went by a little coffee shop selling expensive coffee that was worth every penny and more. He went by a little chocolate shop selling overpriced but average chocolate.

Fuck it. He needed a shot of chocolate so badly he’d take a Hershey’s bar.

So he headed in and stopped at the case, staring down at it, his hands still buried in his pockets, ignoring the people around him.

“Hi.”

He looked up, straight into Lydia Charbonneau’s plain gray eyes. “Hi,” he said flatly. He hadn’t been following her, but he wasn’t completely surprised to see her. Tourists came here all the time and she had turned this direction when she left the restaurant. “The chocolate here’s not that great,” he found himself saying, uncaring that the proprietor was right there.

“Go back to your own country!” the owner barked.

He casually flipped the guy off before Lydia could blister him. “Have you picked anything out yet?”

She shook her head.

He tilted his head toward the door. “C’mon. I’ll take you to get the good stuff. They have lemon truffles for the unenlightened.”

The corner of her mouth tilted up. “Thanks.”

He lightly brushed her back as he ushered her out the door into the cool March afternoon. He shoved his hands in his pockets again and started down the street.

“Does that happen a lot?” she asked. “‘Go back to your own country’?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t usually notice.”

“Cabs don’t pass you by? You don’t have problems with cops or security or anything?”

He glanced at her in shock. “Um … no. Why would I? And even if I did, why would you notice or care? You’re a cute little white girl.”

“Um … I— My father was a minority. Of sorts. I saw it a lot in our community, so I’m sensitive to it.”

“Oh?”

“He was from Cuba,” she said shortly.

Jack decided not to press it. “The truth is, if it doesn’t affect my life, it’s irrelevant and if it does, it’s stupid shit like that maître d’. If I’m out with my family, who can mostly all pass for white, people assume I’m a family friend or adopted or my dad’s not my natural father, but I’m legit. Freak genetics. I inherited my Indian grandfather’s skin and brains, and I got my balls from my old-soldier stiff-upper-lip English grandfather, so it’s a wash.”

“Manifesting as dickishness.”

“Oh, no. They’re both dicks.”

She laughed.

“I was born knowing who I am and on Wall Street, if you make a shit-ton of money for the bosses, nobody cares until you start wanting to date their sisters. I wasn’t interested in anybody’s sisters, though, so I didn’t care about that, either. Women like you who are attracted to me don’t want to be around me because I’m a dick.”

She puffed a laugh and looked down, scuffing a pebble with the toe of her tiny tennies.

“But you’re not as nice as you look. You even fooled me and that’s hard to do.”

She chuckled. “That sounds like a compliment.”

“It most certainly is. ‘Malpractice’ was fucking brilliant.”

She looked up at him with a smile. “I learned from the best.”

“You know, you’re a born New Yorker,” he said slyly, wondering if—

“I was auditioning for a job here,” she reminded him in that low, earthy voice. “I can go anywhere in the world and get a prestigious position. Even India.”

He released a long, slow breath, never breaking her gaze. “How prestigious do you need your positions to be?”

Her eyebrow rose. “They have to be satisfying and since I’m a virtuoso, my standards are very high. I only try something once and if it’s not good enough, I move on.”

His heart was pounding against his ribs. “I’m accustomed to meeting high standards,” he said low.

Again she shrugged and looked away. It was her tell for when she was flustered, turned on, or hiding something. Her other tell was that she wasn’t walking away from him right now.

He said nothing for half a block to goad her into speaking first. Silence made people uncomfortable enough to start talking. It was a salesman’s tactic he used as a last resort because, at his level, he didn’t have to use tactics. His name was his only tactic. Even when he was just starting out, he didn’t use silence much because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut that long.

“So,” she said finally said. He got the distinct feeling she knew what he was doing and capitulated anyway. “It’s not just soufflés? You like chocolate that much you know where all the good places are?”

“I might not know much about much,” he said with alacrity, “but I’m a chocolate connoisseur. And a junkie. I needed a fix.”

“Ah. After the ex-girlfriend and current girlfriend meet up for a bitch-off.”

That made him laugh, and he rubbed his mouth, casting her a grin. “Says Dr. Drama Queen.”

“She wasn’t clever or original. It bugged.”

“Ah, yes. I remember now. Bitchy and vulgar, but never boring.” Her smile widened, and damned if he didn’t nearly swallow his tongue. “That was actually a meeting of two ex-girlfriends.”

“Mmm hm. You have good taste in jewelry, I’ll give you that much.”

Jack sighed heavily. “It was over before I met you, then she caught wood for Sebastian. She was hoping I’d facilitate.”

She laughed softly and Jack wished he were actually funny funny so he could keep her laughing. “I’ve not heard that phrase in reference to a woman.”

“A clit’s just a microdick, right?”

Her laughter thickened. “You have a point.”

“Hold on.” With that, he stepped around her, off the curb, and hailed a cab. He wondered if she noticed he’d had no problem getting one. He gestured for Lydia to get in, then he slid in beside her, giving the cabbie an address for a tiny chocolate shop on Pine Street.

“That’s all the way downtown,” Lydia observed, and he was impressed she knew that.

“Definitely a New Yorker,” he said.

She shrugged. “I like it here.”

“Then what’re you doing in Kansas? What’s it got that New York doesn’t?”

“Cars,” she drawled disdainfully. “It’s got cars.”

“I bet your motorcycle cuts through traffic like butter.”

“It does, but I like my car too much to get rid of it or not drive it.”

“What’d you plan to do with it if you got the job?”

“Store it until I got itchy feet.”

“You’d store your car just for an occasional roadtrip instead of renting?”

“You wouldn’t keep a fully restored 1966 Mustang convertible?” she purred.

Jack’s jaw dropped. He would never have pictured her in such a car but he couldn’t think of one more perfect for her. “Is it purple?” he blurted.

“No.” She smirked and purred, “It’s candy-apple red with high gloss coating and white ragtop.”

Jack started to laugh.

“Do you know how to drive?”

“Yes,” he said snidely. “I even have a car. I run up to my parents’ place in Connecticut and I don’t like being at the mercy of my driver.”

Her eyebrow rose. “Mama’s boy?”

“Daddy’s,” he shot back. “Play tennis. Help around the house. I told you my life was boring. A thirty-six-year-old man who likes hanging out with his folks is boring and pathetic.”

Good God, she looked fucking impressed. No woman was ever impressed by a guy who hung out with his parents.

“Your parents don’t hire that stuff out? Even I hire housekeepers and landscapers.”

He shrugged. “My parents didn’t come into real money until I started managing it. I’m no private prep school brat. I mean, we had a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Better than middle class, but not anywhere in the range of upper middle class. You know, Leave it to Beaver. By the time they could afford private schools, I was seventeen, I had my life mapped out, and I wasn’t going to be yanked off track. They’re still in the same house and now they’re the millionaire-next-door types. My brothers take care of the lawn. I do the maintenance because I know that house like the back of my hand, and when I do, it’s because I need to burn off some extra energy. So I keep my car.”

Her expression softened even more, and for some reason Jack didn’t understand, he liked that she wasn’t dismissive of him, didn’t find his relationship with his parents to be pathetic, and was impressed by these stupid things he did even though he didn’t have to. He’d never cared what women thought of these things because he didn’t go out with ones who wanted to talk.

Now he cared.

“What is it?”

“Beemer.”

She rolled her eyes and promptly stopped being impressed. “You are a walking stereotype, aren’t you?”

He laughed. “I am, but you are not. You intrigue me more with every word that comes out of your mouth.”

“This is a new experience for you, I take it? Talking to intriguing women?”

“Intriguing women don’t like to talk to me. Can’t figure out why you do.”

“You’re smart. Interesting. Funny.”

“Smart doesn’t count for much when the only thing you want to talk about is math and sex—” She grinned. “—neither of which are particularly interesting as topics of conversation. As for funny, nobody thinks I’m funny.”

“I have a sick and twisted sense of humor.” She rolled her shoulder suggestively, making all the gold in her hair glimmer in the sunlight filtering through the cab’s open windows. Her curls were flying here and there, plastering themselves to her face before she absently swept them away.

He couldn’t help himself. He leaned into her and kissed her.

She squeaked a little into his mouth, her eyes wide, then relaxed and kissed him back. Then she closed her eyes, sighed, tilted her head a little so he could get deeper.

“Mmm,” she hummed, softly taking his face in her hands.

It went on and on, and if it kept going like this, they’d end up in bed tonight, which was not a bad idea at all. He immediately began rearranging his schedule in his head.

“Lydia,” he whispered against her mouth, “come home with me. Now.”

“Shhh,” she breathed and continued the kiss, finding his tongue, nibbling a little on his top lip.

She was driving him fucking crazy and if this didn’t stop he’d fuck her right here, right now. “Please.”

“Mmm hm. Shush.”

Except he couldn’t. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes. Shut—up.”

Oh, God, he was going to die before they got downtown if they kept kissing like this.

“I am so glad,” Jack murmured huskily as he pulled away from her only far enough to say, “I am done with those bitches.”

That was the wrong thing to say. She jerked away from him, her expression shut down, her smile gone. And she—

“Fuck! Seriously?” he barked when she scrubbed her mouth on her sleeve—the sleeve of a seven-thousand-dollar outfit!

The look she gave him was pure poison, then she knocked on the ceiling.

The cab swerved to the curb and she got out, all in a few seconds during which Jack couldn’t form one coherent thought.

“Wait! Lydia! Shit,” he hissed as he scrambled for his clip and peeled off God only knew how many twenties for a five-dollar ride. “Shit,” he said again as he then scrambled out of the car and jogged to catch up to her, storming down the sidewalk, her curls bouncing, the gold on her jacket twinkling, taunting him.

“Hey, look,” he said when he caught up to her. “I—” What? Didn’t mean it like that? He certainly did. Wasn’t usually that direct? He certainly was. “I’m used to opportunists,” he blurted.

She didn’t respond. Didn’t look at him. Didn’t acknowledge his existence. Just kept walking.

Dirp.

“I was trying to reassure you that I’m not about them. They weren’t there for me. They were there for Sebastian, which was fine with me because I was done with ’em anyway.” He grimaced. That sounded bad even to him.

All he got for that was ignored.

“Lydia, c’mon, you know what I’m trying to say.”

Then he realized he was begging. Why was he begging? He didn’t have to beg anyone for anything. Especially women. He stopped cold. “Fine!” he yelled at her back. “Fuck you, too!”

Nothing. Not even the bird.

He stood there frustrated, pissed off, at her, at himself, watching her get farther and farther away from him. He sighed and started after her again.

She stopped and looked across the street. Then Jack heard a scream from across and down the street. Help! Help!

Meh, this was New York. Somebody got mugged. Big deal. Stuff like that probably didn’t happen much out in Little Piano on the Prairie, so of course it’d get her attention.

To his shock, though, she bolted across the street, deftly dodging cars without a hitch, getting to the other side and … disappearing into the crowd.

“Fuck,” he whispered, taking a deep breath and heading across the street—fucking jaywalking!—after her. She was going to get herself killed, pulling rube touristy shit like that. They were all too nosy and do-gooding.

He knew when he’d caught up to her because there was a crowd gathered. He barged his way through it to see her, panting, with the collars of two kids in her injured hands, holding onto the squirming children with ease, shrugging her backpack up on her shoulder and failing. There were two beat cops, one talking to Lydia and one talking to a late-middle-aged woman whose arm was around an elderly gentleman.

“They’re mine,” Lydia was saying to the cop apologetically. “We’re on our way to their therapist and they— Well. There’s a reason they’re in therapy.”

“Lydia—”

She cast Jack another poisonous glare over her shoulder.

“Lady, you gotta keep your kids under control,” the cop said threateningly. “I can take you in for this.” He looked at the kids’ clothes, then hers. “They don’t look like yours.”

“Oh, um, they … dress this way to bug me. I’m— Look,” she said, her voice trembling as if she were about to cry. “I’m a single mother. I was auditioning for an acting job—”

Jack rolled his eyes. Both cops snorted.

“—and my ex-husband’s going to take my kids and, officer, I swear to you, we barely escaped with our lives.”

She was chewing the fucking scenery.

“Hey, Precious,” Jack said, stepping forward. He held out his hand to the cop. “Fiancé. My fault. They got away from me while she was auditioning.” Well, she had been auditioning today. “Ex really is homicidal.” One kid was flushed and his struggles were fading. The other kid was still squirming and though Jack knew Lydia probably had the grip of an iron claw, she was also in pain. Her face was pale and her knuckles were purple and swollen. They needed to be iced.

So he grabbed the slightly bigger one by the back of the neck and squeezed a little, surreptitiously, just to make sure the kid knew he meant business. That was when the kid seemed to figure out they really were being rescued, so he slowly stopped trying to get away. The little one was starting to wilt completely.

Lydia let go and picked the little one up, let him slump against her shoulder, rocked him a little, and rubbed his back. This seemed to convince the cops she was telling the truth.

Jack looked at the victims. “I can pay the damages.”

“Nothing was taken,” said the woman who clutched her purse to her chest, “but they knocked over my father.”

Yeah, the guy looked like he’d blow away in a good breeze. “Then can I get you to the ER?” Jack asked smoothly. “Happy to pay for it.”

That shocked the woman and her father. “I … uh … ”

“I really need to get these two to their appointment,” Lydia said earnestly, turning back to the beat cop and looking up into his eyes.

Jack shivered a little at how creepy it was that the guy stopped, stared, blinked, then shook it off and said gruffly, “Yeah. Your boyfriend here—”

“—can get names, addresses, and phone numbers,” Jack said quickly. “Go on, Precious,” he said through his teeth when he looked at her. Her eyes narrowed at him slightly, and just to be a dick, he leaned in and kissed her again. He almost yelped when she bit his lip.

No one noticed.

“C’mon, kids,” she said lightly. “We’re burnin’ daylight.”

“Hicks,” muttered the woman as Lydia shuffled the kids past, through the crowd, and down the street.

Jack gathered all the information he could. The pair declined to go to the hospital, make a statement, or press charges, but that might have been because of a generous flash of green from Jack’s money clip.

As soon as he could, he took off down the street, hoping he hadn’t lost them, but he heard them before he saw them. Rather, he heard Lydia lecturing. Loudly. Angrily.

He turned into Central Park and saw them in a narrow nook, the big kid sitting on a ledge cowering in front of her. He had no escape. There were brambles behind them, a fence on one side, rocks on the other, and Lydia was blocking his escape route. The small one was still in her arms, his eyes closed.

So Jack stopped and leaned against a stone pillar, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Tell me where to find your doc!” she demanded.

Jack blinked. That wasn’t normal riot-reading conversation. She turned and glared at Jack. “The girl’s got a fever and she might need antibiotics. She needs medical attention now, but she can’t go to an ER.”

Jack scowled. “Why not?”

“They’ll put them in foster care, that’s why, which, for these two, is worse than how they’re living now.” She threw her backpack at him so hard he oofed. “Go get some Tylenol and bottles of water or something. Make yourself useful.”

Okay, that was it. It was official.

He hated her. Hated.

But he didn’t even have a chance to move before the small child—who didn’t look like a girl—shifted and practically rolled out of her arms. Lydia caught her just in time, but Jack strode over and plucked her out of Lydia’s arms. Jack knew nothing about children or how hot they ran, but not only was she bright red, she was practically steaming.

He glared at the boy—at least, he thought he was a boy—and said, “Answer the question. Now. Your sister’s burning up here.”

“Spanish Harlem,” the boy muttered.

“Where in Spanish Harlem?” Lydia demanded.

“Third and one-thirteenth.”

She turned and bolted past Jack, then he heard a sharp whistle. “Come on!” she yelled.

Somehow all four of them managed to get into the back of a cab whose very large driver, it seemed, was a nosy fuck. “Hospital?”

When Lydia gave the intersection, he turned around slowly and looked at her. Then he looked at the boy, who said, “Simon.”

The cab driver nodded and the child deflated into the seat, closing his eyes and leaning against Lydia, who wrapped her arm around him and hugged him close.

Jack had no idea what was going on, but he kept his mouth shut and marveled at how fast they got from the Lower West Side to East Harlem.

They stopped in front of any one of a dozen shitty rows of shops between a hundred thirteenth and hundred fourteenth.

“Go!” Lydia barked at Jack while she dug in her purse. Jack did as he was told, carrying the girl and letting the boy guide him. He didn’t look back for Lydia, as she seemed to be able to handle herself well here, for a touchy rube from Flyover, U.S.A.

It wasn’t long before she caught up to them, her chest heaving. “If she’s too heavy,” Lydia panted, “I can carry her.”

Jack just glared at her. “Your hands got better all of a sudden.”

“Adrenaline,” she snapped, following the boy into a dark, dank, disgusting labyrinth of waste, sewage, and humans who all resembled trash bags.

At the end of the third turn there was a rusted-shut rollup door flanked by high stacks of trash bags and no way out but back. Jack panicked.

“Shit, this girl’s going to die in my arms!”

But the boy stuck his hand in a rusty hole and pushed. “Simon!” he called. “Mary’s sick.”

And where there had been what appeared to be a dead-end, there was now an entrance to a run-down but clean apartment. “In here,” said a tall, wiry black woman with short dreadlocks and wearing blue scrubs. Jack followed where she was pointing, which was a small exam room that looked meticulously kept.

“Hey, is this kid contagious?” Jack demanded.

“With any luck,” the woman said, “no. Put her on the table.”

Jack carefully laid the girl on the table, a standard padded thing with the paper covering it. It crinkled normally.

“Undress her.”

Jack grimaced. “Um. No.”

“Undress her!” Lydia barked from the other room.

“Fuck you!” he yelled as he set about undressing a little girl while the woman—doctor? nurse?—washed her hands and put gloves on. She worked silently, taking vitals, looking in her ears with the thing he didn’t know the name of while he gingerly tried to get her thin tee shirt off.

“Scissors,” said the woman calmly. “Behind you.”

Jack began to hurry when she showed him the child’s temperature: 104.5.

“How bad is that?” he asked quietly, now snipping her clothes off without hesitation.

“Bad. Towels in the second drawer down. Soak them in cold water.”

Jack was uncultured, not uneducated, stupid, or shit in a crisis, so he followed his common sense and worked with the—

“Are you a doctor or a nurse or what?”

“Doctor. Most folks just call me Simon.”

Simon says. “Jack.”

“Nice to meet you, Jack. Ear infection,” she said after further examination, which involved prying the child’s mouth open. “Possibly strep throat. Normal kid stuff that’s fatal for street kids. I need to get some Tylenol and antibiotics in her. Just keep keeping her cool. Jesus!” she called. The boy appeared in the door of the exam room. “How long has she been sick?”

“I don’t know.”

“What were you doing before you ran into these two?”

“Mugging an old man,” Jack muttered as he worked. “Central Park West, Sixty-fifth.”

“Dammit!” the doc burst out, slamming her hand on the table and glaring at the boy over her shoulder. Jack glanced up to see him cowering, which he figured was in order. “I told you not to go down that far.”

“Somebody needed a message delivered.”

The doc sighed heavily, but didn’t respond. “How did you know to bring them here?” she asked Jack. “That suit’s bespoke.”

“I didn’t,” he muttered. “The lady in there. Lydia. She got this ball rolling.”

“She saved this little girl’s life. Lydia!” she shouted. “Make Jell-O.”

“Okay!” Water immediately began running, and cabinets banged open and closed.

Simon swung around to glare at the little boy again.

“Cut it out,” Jack said. “He’s a kid.”

“He’s a street kid, and he knows better. He lets Mary run roughshod over him. That your girlfriend?”

“Oh, hell no!” came her voice from the other room. A cabinet slammed closed.

Simon’s eyes flickered up to Jack, her mouth twitching in amusement. He looked away. No, not his girlfriend. Not now. Not ever. He’d screwed that pooch, killed it, skinned it, roasted it, eaten it, and shat it back out again.

“Prep her arm.”

Jack turned, scratching his memory for what that meant, and looked for alcohol pads by instinct. Found them. Clipped off the sleeve of her tattered shirt, turned her arm over, and rubbed the alcohol over her skin. More alcohol. More.

“That’s good. Thanks.”

He watched her put two syringes of stuff in her arm, one after the other.

“Now,” she said, “go put her on the couch and keep her cool.”

“What’s the Jell-O for?”

“We have to keep her hydrated. Easier to get water in ’em with Jell-O and popsicles.”

“No popsicles,” Lydia called. “Bodega?”

“Out, right, three blocks up, two over and ’cross Third.” Simon looked up at Jack and murmured, “Your girlfriend’s sharp.”

His jaw locked.

Jack pulled the girl into his arms, took her into the tiny living room and laid her carefully on the well-worn couch.

“No, don’t hold her. Her fever won’t go down with heat against her.”

Lydia was moving around like she’d been here before, and after opening the refrigerator and staring, she slammed it closed and disappeared into the exam room, coming out again in scrubs. She found her purse, took out some cash, threw her purse at Jack, and left without a word.

“Soooo,” Simon said, handing Jack a glass of water, turning a small fan on the girl, and sitting in a soft chair opposite to the one he’d claimed. “What’s the story?”

He told her what he knew, which was little enough.

“And why are you two in on this together if you’re not together?”

“Wrong place, wrong time,” he muttered. “Said the wrong thing.”

“Ah.”

“We just met. Three days ago. She’s not impressed.”

She said nothing more. Neither did Jack. They both watched the little girl, with the boy hovering on the edges. Simon made a gesture and there he was, in her lap, snuggled up against her.

Jack gestured around. “What is … ?”

“It’s a clinic, obviously,” she answered, half annoyed, half condescending. “People who can’t show up in an ER come here. Lots of stuff that needs penicillin. Broken bones, gunshot wounds.” She gestured to his clothes again. “You’re pretty far away from home. You coulda told her to handle it and gone home. No skin off your nose.”

He shrugged. “Do you need money?”

“I always need money.”

He nodded and took out his clip, then tossed it to her.

She looked at it, took the clip off, counted it, and tossed the empty clip back to him. “Many thanks.”

He arose, took out his mobile phone and wandered into the kitchen, although kitchen was generous. It was little more than a couple of cabinets, a tiny sink and tiny oven. The refrigerator was normal sized—and chock full of medicine.

“Insulin, mostly,” she said when he stood there gaping at it. “We have some diabetic old folks around who still want to keep living, God only knows why.”

Jack called Melinda to tell her he was out for the rest of the day, and which meetings he wanted Sebastian and Bucho to cover. He rooted around in the freezer for an ice pack after he hung up and laid it on the sleeping little girl’s forehead.

“You must be a high roller.”

“I’m the CEO of an investment bank,” he said tightly, dropping into the chair. “I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

The slightly condescending air dissipated.

“How old are the kids?”

“Not sure. I think she’s about five, six. The boy thinks he’s eleven.”

“I have two eleven-year-old nephews. He’s nowhere near eleven.”

“He could be,” Simon said matter-of-factly. “Street kids’ bodies suffer. His growth is stunted, but I wouldn’t know whether it’s malnutrition or genetic or hormones without labs, which I can’t get without getting busted.”

Jack’s eyebrow rose.

“I’m unlicensed. Clinic’s off the radar. I can’t sacrifice my invisibility for treatment that isn’t life or death and if you do it, CPS will get to him.”

She was risking a lot, telling him this, especially since she didn’t know he didn’t like people stepping across lines into unethical. And an unlicensed doctor running an unlicensed clinic was pretty fucking unethical.

“I’m only telling you this because I don’t want a rich do-gooder with a savior complex and faith in social services deciding what’s best for me and my clinic and the street kids around here, and there are more than just these two. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to trust you to keep your mouth shut, but keep this in mind: If you turn me in, you’ll kill a few kids.” She gestured to little Mary.

He slid his jaw back and forth in thought. “Fine,” he finally said, although it made him very uncomfortable to let an unlicensed clinic and doc go. “You have my word.”

“Which doesn’t mean much amongst you Wall Street types.”

She was questioning his word?! “Unlike many others of my professional persuasion,” he growled, “I have ethics, which are spotless, and I keep my word. Always. Everybody in corporate America trusts me to both do what’s right and keep my word, which means everybody in corporate America wants to do business with me so when I don’t do business with someone, everybody else knows something’s wrong.”

Her mouth tightened. “Fine. And … thank you.”

Jack didn’t know how much time had lapsed before Lydia returned, her arms full of grocery bags, two teenagers following her with more. She ordered the kids to sit down and thunked a jug of orange juice between them, then began putting the rest of the food away.

The little girl began to stir. Whether it was the noise or what, Jack didn’t know.

“Thank you,” Simon said. “Lydia, was it?”

“Yes. How is she?”

“Fever’s gone down, but not enough.”

Lydia glanced at Jack. “Go home. Your part’s done.”

His jaw clenched and he stared up at her stonily. “I’ll go home when I damn well please.”

Her eyebrow rose. “Don’t you have another couple of girlfriends waiting in the wings until you’re done with them?”

It took him a few seconds to come up with something more original than fuck you, but he watched her speculatively while he thought. “If I didn’t know better,” he drawled, “I’d start getting the idea you’re jealous.”

She flushed a little. Good God, really? Maybe there was hope. “What I am is insulted.”

“Mm hm. You don’t have any reason to be jealous,” he purred. “I can show you how jealous you don’t have to be.”

She snarled at him. “Slut.”

The two boys at the table snorted so hard orange juice came out of their noses.

But Jack just shrugged and went back to nursing his water, watching the little girl stir, and sensing every step Lydia made while she fussed with food. Dishes. Faucets. She ordered Jesus to the table and gave him a juice glass too. All four of them were speaking Spanish, but the teenagers’ snotty tone was the same in every language. She snapped back, then faster and sharper as she got in the boys’ faces.

They went from snotty to completely cowed in about thirty seconds.

Simon slid a shocked look toward the kitchenette and her eyebrows rose.

And then they looked Lydia in the eye. Cowed turned to terror.

Lydia plunked a plate of sandwiches down in front of them, sandwiches Jack didn’t even notice she was making, and lectured a little more before she gave them popsicles.

“Lawdy,” Simon whispered with awe and settled back into her chair, looking shellshocked.

“You speak Spanish?” Jack asked.

She shrugged. “Bits and pieces.” He gestured toward the kitchen and she shook her head. “No idea.”

Jack watched her surreptitiously, awestruck and achingly aroused by exactly how alpha she was. God, how he wanted a piece of her.

Lots of pieces.

For a long time.

“What’s wrong with the baby?” Lydia called from the kitchen.

“Ear infection,” Jack sniped. “Possibly strep throat.”

“Just waiting for the fever to break,” Simon said.

“Where is she going to stay?” Lydia asked.

“Oh, here. They crash here when they feel like it.” She paused. “How did you know they’d have someone like me available to them?”

Lydia hesitated. “I’ve had some experience with black markets. Being underground. Invisible. They’re filthy, but their clothes aren’t completely trashed. Neither are their shoes. They’re not too skinny. Kids like that don’t run free without a home base.”

“You grew up in the streets?”

She hesitated again, and her glance flickered to Jack. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Really poor, then.”

She shrugged. “Family business didn’t take off for a while. We didn’t waste money on nice digs and new jeans when it did. Are you hungry?”

“Actually,” Simon answered, “I am. Yes. I haven’t had a chance to get lunch.”

With that, Lydia turned and began taking pans and food out. Jack watched her work, dressed in those shapeless scrubs, her movements quick and efficient as she put a skillet on the stove, lit the burner with a match, spooned some gunk out of a tiny crock and slapped it in the skillet, cracked eggs into a bowl, beat the shit out of them with a fork, and poured them into the skillet. Salt. Pepper. A little lemon juice, a little butter. A few other spices.

Jack had no idea why one would have to light a stove with a match.

Mary was awakening. She was groggy. Mulish. Still feverish but not in the danger zone. Sulking after Simon gave her a stern, growling lecture on not going below Eighty-fifth, and staying on the east side of Central Park. Lydia scurried to get a purple popsicle in her hand, then she brought Simon the scrambled eggs.

“These are good,” Simon told her matter-of-factly.

“Thanks,” she said absently as she dished up Jell-O for Mary. All of it. She put on water for another batch and began cleaning up after herself. “I’m going back to my place,” Lydia announced after she’d put the new pan of Jell-O into the fridge and put away the last dish. She turned to the teenagers, said something in Spanish, after which they got up and cleaned their dishes. Then put them away.

Simon watched this in what looked like awe.

“Hey, Simon,” Jack said, gesturing to Lydia. “She banged up her knuckles. Can you do something for her? They’re not broken, but they do need to be iced and obviously she’s not going to do it herself.”

Both Simon and Lydia looked at him in surprise, then Simon looked at Lydia, who reluctantly held them out for her inspection. “And you’ve been working like that?”

Lydia slid Jack a blistering look. “You do what you have to.”

Simon merely grunted and took Lydia back into the exam room.

Jack watched the two women, their heads bent together, Simon taking care of her. It seemed to him, from the way she responded to first Sebastian then Jack taking care of her hands, Jack putting her shoes on, then Simon bandaging her hands, that she didn’t get that much. She certainly hadn’t objected when he’d stroked her feet and ankles. What he didn’t know was if it was a comfort or a turn-on.

Comfort, probably, judging by the way Lydia’s body was relaxing and she was just hanging her hands out there to be swabbed and bandaged like any of it was going to help.

After rescuing a couple of street kids. Making food. Buying and carting groceries. Making more food. Ripping two tough-looking teenage boys a new one. In Spanish. Then feeding them, too.

He clenched his jaw and looked away, listening to snatches of their conversation concerning logistics, getting more details of the day’s misadventure, praising each other for their quick thinking, discussing the long-term care of the kids, including the teenagers and whatever she’d said to them, which made Simon chuckle.

Finally they were done, Lydia emerging with tidy bandages around her fingers, her face looking a lot less strained and in pain.

“I’ll be back in the morning to check on her and bring your clothes back,” she was telling Simon as she got ready to leave.

“I’ll go with you,” Jack said as he heaved himself out of the chair.

“No,” Lydia said coldly over her shoulder. “You won’t.”

“Fine,” he returned, tossing her purse and backpack at her so hard she oofed when she caught them. “Your flamenco outfit’s gonna need extra special cleaning,” he drawled.

“It’s a traje de luces. A suit of lights, for people who are too important to learn Spanish.” With that, she stormed out the door, the teenagers following like trained puppies.

“She speaks Spanish?” Mary asked in wonder, looking up over the couch at Jesus, who looked delightedly hopeful.

Jack looked at Simon, who said, “You got your work cut out for you.”

His lip curled. “I’m not working that hard for any woman.”

“I know a man in love when I see one.”

Jack’s jaw clenched. “And I know a yenta when I see one. I hate that woman, so it’s not happening. Not now. Not ever.”

---

7: NO GOOD DEED

MONDAY MORNING, Lydia was at the Wall Street station waiting for the train to take her up to Spanish Harlem to check on Simon and the kids for the third day in a row, which was the only reason she was still in New York. She was thinking she should’ve waited until after rush hour when she heard someone—male—yell her name. She scowled when Jack caught up to her. He wasn’t smiling. Wasn’t penitent in the least. Was pissed off, in fact.

“I want to start over again,” he said tightly.

That shocked her, especially because he seemed to expect her to be receptive in spite of his irritation. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he snapped.

Suddenly amused, she asked slyly, “Any new girlfriends?”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s one way to a girl’s vagina,” she drawled.

He slid her an irritated glance. “Stop trying to make me laugh. I’m busy being mad at you.”

She started to snicker, which made his mouth twitch. He was trying so hard not to laugh.

Trying so hard to make up for his gaffes. He squinted at her. “You don’t seem to mind unconventional flirtation.”

“Clits and microdicks?”

That got him to laugh. “Band name. Clits and Microdicks.”

She laughed then too. “Soooo you’re mad at yourself, blame me, then track me down to talk about vulgar band names.”

“I didn’t track you down,” he said testily. “I’m going the same place you are.”

“For which you could call your car service.”

He gave her a get-real look. “Like I’m going to show up in that neighborhood stepping out of a Mercedes? Let’s just put a fireworks show in front of Simon’s labyrinth, shall we?”

“Oh.” She looked at him then. Really looked. Ratty jeans. Worn concert tee shirt. Running shoes past their useful life. “Right.”

“Mmm hm, and you in Daisy Dukes.”

“Your fashion ignorance is showing. Khaki knee shorts are light years away from Daisy Dukes.”

“I’m using my very vivid imagination to dress up your disappointing vanilla-wear. Aren’t Daisy Dukes like your uniform in Kansas?”

“No,” she sneered. “We are not uncultured swine.”

“I have culture.”

“In your refrigerator.”

He grinned, and Lydia was horrified by how much she still wanted to spend a weekend in bed with him.

Talking.

Laughing.

Making love.

Lord, she had it bad, or else she was just desperate. No, she knew exactly what it was and hopefully it would go away when she got home.

But instead of giving him the cold shoulder as she should, she found herself asking, “How was your weekend?”

“Spent it in bed.”

Her mouth pursed. Her nostrils flared.

“Thinking about you,” he said smugly.

Her breath caught and her body tingled in all the right places.

“Not really all weekend,” he amended. “Just long enough to get myself off a few times. Then I played tennis with my dad.”

She put her hand to her mouth and started to laugh again.

“That is not a joke.”

“I didn’t think it was. Is this why you want to start over?”

“Yes, because I’d rather have you in my hand, but it’s hard to think up an extra super good grovel when I’m imagining you naked and on top of me. Very, very hard. For a long, long time.”

“Condolences on your priapism.”

“Well, I didn’t have to go to the ER.” She was shocked, delighted, and he gave her a smug grin. “Didn’t think I’d know that word, did you?”

“No.”

“You play tennis?”

“I can hit a couple of balls when they come at me just right.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

“Does it matter?”

“When a woman’s pissed at you, it sure does.”

She laughed. “Smart man. So tell me. How does one be a bond trader and a CEO? Aren’t those jobs competing for time?”

He looked surprised at the question. “Bonds are the methadone to my derivatives heroin and I am an addict. I’m the CEO because my boss pissed me off last year and I staged a coup, then I slapped my name on the building to rub it in.”

Lydia’s eyes widened and her bottom lip fell open. He began to preen again.

“Which part of that has you shellshocked?” he cooed.

“Derivatives,” she drawled. “You really are an addict, aren’t you?”

He scowled. “You aren’t supposed to know what all that is. You’re a fucking piano teacher.”

“I know more than you do,” she returned cheekily.

“Hrmph. I was trying to impress you with the CEO part.”

“You mean, ‘Oops, I just became supreme ruler. Now what do I do?’”

He laughed. “Oops is right. I didn’t think that through at all so I’m still trying to learn the job.”

“Okay, since you confessed, I will too. I started watching a Canadian TV show. Traders. They just aired an episode on a derivatives genius.”

“I saw that!” he said with the same excitement he’d had at lunch. “The guy had three hours to make one-point-eight million dollars, and he worked for Hershey bars.”

Lydia nodded, trying not to laugh.

“I did that. Once, although it took me four hours and as you know, I’m picky about my chocolate, but I made two and a half million. Most intense four hours of my life and I had to mainline caffeine and sugar to do it.”

Lydia’s jaw dropped. “Okay,” she said slowly. “If that episode was true to life, I am most definitely impressed.” Impressed that he didn’t brag. Impressed he was that passionate about something. Impressed he was just a little boy who wanted to share his passion with someone who’d listen. It wasn’t difficult. She liked listening to him. He wanted to share his accomplishments with someone he thought might acknowledge he did something well, and she had no problem praising good work.

Especially for a guy who accepted it and went on. “And now you know why I trade bonds. It’s a fucking vacation. Plus, I can do both jobs. Not well, but I can do it. The board of directors doesn’t really like me—”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“—but they like my ethics and reputation, so the shareholders would scream. My COO, Melinda, you met her. She was one of my partners in crime. Right now she can’t help me much because she had to take over her dad’s operation after he went cuckoo. So she is also doing two hundred-hour-a-week jobs. Her boyfriend—”

“Bucho.”

“Right. He’s a venture capitalist, but right now he’s like a freelance executive floating between her company and mine. Sebastian’s doing Melinda’s job for the time being.”

“Why don’t you just hire somebody?”

“There are very few people I trust to take over so I can get my derivatives fix. I can CEO and trade bonds, but I can’t CEO and trade derivatives.”

“If the only reason you’re CEO was to teach somebody a lesson and you don’t like doing it, then step down. Lesson taught.”

“I like having my name on the building too much,” he said amiably.

“So it’s all about your ego.”

He slid her a glance. “Look in a mirror, sweetheart. You’ve got ‘Stroke my ego’ tattooed on your forehead.”

She laughed, delighted.

“And I would be very happy to stroke your ego all you want.”

“With a condom.”

“Most certainly. I do not want any passengers.”

“You’re not going to get any from me. I am equally unencumbered.”

“Unencumbered? Well, aren’t you Dr. Vocabulary.”

“It means—”

“I know what it means. Nobody but my dad uses words like that and he’s also a college professor.”

“Mmm hm.”

“Okay, uncle. I concede that you are smarter than I am and you have more letters behind your name. Happy now?”

“Well,” she conceded in return, “quantitative finance and derivatives are way above my pay grade. But I’m definitely better travelled.”

“If you must know, I’ve been to India and England to visit grandparents, but the jet lag killed me. Sleeping is my third inviolable tenet right after judicious use of alcohol, caffeine, and sugar, and avoiding STDs and unwanted pregnancies.”

“Tenet? Inviolable? You even pronounced it correctly.”

He grinned smugly.

“But can you spell ‘tenet’?”

“T-e-n-a-n-t.”

She harrumphed. “You did that on purpose.”

“If being stupid will get me in your pants faster, I’m all for spelling t-e-n-e-t wrong.”

“If I thought you were stupid, I wouldn’t have talked to you in the first place.”

“Oh, a compliment! I’m moving up in the world.”

“Maybe. I didn’t know Tiggers slept.”

“We do,” he said matter-of-factly. “I crash at nine p.m. on the dot. And I do mean crash.”

“You just run out of steam and collapse into bed?” she asked in amazement.

He nodded. “Depends on where I am at nine-oh-one, in which case I’ll sleep under a bridge. I get up at four. I like to be in the office at five.”

Lydia looked at her watch. Eight-thirty. “You’ve got almost a half a day in already.”

“A normal person’s workday, yes. You don’t make as much money as I do working forty hours a week.” He eyed her then. “I hardly think you work forty hours a week, either. My dad sure as hell doesn’t. At your audition, you said you teach composition too? That’s actually writing music, right?”

She was shocked he remembered that. Thrilled. “I edit and arrange music for a couple of publishing companies. Pop songs for different levels of proficiency. It kind of morphed into teaching pop music composition. You know, the chart-toppers that make you rich. Hooks, bridges, stuff like that. It’s assembly-line music, but that and producing are where the money is if you can get a producer or singer to listen. Royalties on hit songs are unreal.”

“Daaaaayyyyuuuum.”

His expression and tone told her he was very impressed. Genuinely. Most people were, but he was too bouncy to be impressed by anything.

“My hobby is arranging hit songs to be played on one piano and mimic all the backing tracks. It’s not possible, but it’s still incredibly difficult to play, actually comparable to what I played last week, but you don’t audition with it, even at a performing arts school. Which is another reason I’m so angry about that audition. I sent in those arrangements with my tapes. That should’ve gotten me the job without having to audition. My students have to be able to play one of my arrangements as their final. Bonus if they can sing it, too. One of my grad students learned my most difficult one as part of his thesis.”

“Which one?”

“‘Devil Went Down to Georgia.’ One song. Nine credit hours.”

His mouth dropped a little. “One thing you arranged was worth nine five-hundred-level credit hours?” When she nodded, he breathed, “Fuuuuck.”

She grinned cockily, which made him laugh. He was impressed. But not threatened. That was new and different. And wonderful, that he thought about what she did and expressed appreciation of it.

“But, uh, that’s not high culture, like your audition.”

“Fun music doesn’t have to be simple,” she said archly. “Charlie Daniels is a brilliant musician. Freddie Mercury and Geddy Lee are geniuses. ‘Devil’’s more difficult than anything I played at my audition, almost unplayable. The sheet music is one big mass of black. The final test was if he could play one part on the fly with me playing the other part, without preparation. But he did it and we both sang it, just like the song.”

He started to laugh. “I bet you did the devil part—” She grinned. “—with all that black magicky bullshit everybody thinks you do. Who won the gold fiddle?”

“Neither. All he had to do was be able to keep up,” she explained, “take Johnny’s cues, rap and sing Johnny’s lines, and leave me to do the devil’s. It was an improvisational exercise, a pop quiz, so to speak.” Suddenly wanting to impress this man, she gave him a sly look. “It wasn’t required. I just wanted to have some fun and show off for my colleagues. But they don’t know that.”

He let out a peal of rich, deep laughter. “God, I’d have given anything to see that ego on display!” he crowed. After a full minute of laughter, during which he was wiping his eyes with his knuckle, he asked, “Well, so … have you written any of your own hits?”

She shook her head. “I’m not an artist; I’m a craftsman. Even if I were an artist, I don’t want to shop it around. That’s not interesting and I don’t beg.”

His lids shuttered a little. “I could make you beg,” he purred.

He certainly could, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “My professional claim to fame,” she said pointedly, “because nobody at my level takes pop music seriously no matter how genius or difficult, is coaching highly advanced pianists, some of whom are already virtuosos and on the concert circuit. I’m one of the toughest coaches in the world.”

“How mean do you get, Teach?” he asked with fake innocence. “Asking for a friend.”

She sniffed. “You don’t come from China to study with me if you aren’t willing to get your butt handed to you.”

“Oh, that’s where you learned how to terrify teenage ruffians who are bigger than you.”

“They didn’t want to help me take groceries back. It made me mad.”

“Simon was in awe. And then you did your eye thing.”

“Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean everybody else is tripping.”

He laughed. “I am the only sane, drug-free man on Wall Street.”

“Not even a line of coke in your formative years?”

“Noooooo. You?”

“Oh, no. My dad would’ve— Well, I actually don’t know what he’d have done, but he put the fear of God in me if I ever so much as lit up a doobie.”

“Good man. Good man.”

“Vodka, on the other hand … ”

He laughed. “Honestly, I don’t mind a martini now and again—”

“Oh, no. You’re an Old Fashioned kind of guy. You don’t drink it because you like it. You drink it because it’s straightforward, traditional, and warns everyone not to mess with you.”

He was clearly pleased. “And your poison is lemon drops. Tart, colorful, one of those evil girly drinks that’ll put you on the floor in two sips.”

Even more delighted, she said, “Yes!”

“And so as a reward for my insight, have one with me tonight? Dinner? ’Bout seven? Remember, I turn into a pumpkin at nine so playtime would have to wait until the weekend if you’d like to allow me to reward you for your insight.”

She smiled, because even though he was so awful, he was so cute about it. “Sure.”

“Which one?”

She slid him a look. “Dinner, yes. Playtime depends on how well you grovel the rest of the week.” He grinned like he’d just conquered the world, and she laughed. “Simon turned Mary loose yesterday.”

Jack grunted. “Hurricane Mary, you mean?”

Lydia blinked and looked at him.

He returned her look with a raised eyebrow and said, “You aren’t the only one with a savior complex around here. I was up there Saturday and yesterday, too. Just missed you. Mary whined enough to get on Simon’s nerves. And she had a patient, so I didn’t stay long.”

That shocked the hell out of her. “Oh. Uh … Sebastian told me you had a cold black heart.”

“I have no heart at all,” he said snidely. “Or a soul. That’s why you can’t voodoo me. No soul, nothing to suck out.”

“That would explain why there’s no blood test for my idiopathic physiological anomaly.”

“Mmm hm. My soullessness is also why I’m the alpha of Wall Street.”

“A soulless alpha who wants to sleep with a cute little piano teacher who sucks men’s souls out through their eyes.”

He looked her up and down. “I’d rather you suck something else out of me from somewhere else. Your mouth is gorgeous. You were made to suck cock. Mine.”

She tsk’d. “You have to give me a blow job first. To my satisfaction, which may not happen before your jaw falls off.”

“I,” he said haughtily, “am a magnificent eater-outer. My jaw is well toned.”

“Would any of your cheap blowup dolls actually tell you you suck? Or not.”

“That hurts my feelings.” He leaned against her and purred, “I’ll let you teach me how to suck your microdick this weekend. Tongue it. Lick it. Tie you up first. With my silk tie. Blindfold you. Make you beg and scream all the way into Sunday night.”

“At nine. Are you going to fall asleep with your head between my legs?”

“If there is a God in heaven.”

Try as she might, Lydia could not come up with a response to that and he gave her a cocky grin. Any normal woman would slap him, but this was the sort of banter that turned her on if the man himself already intrigued her and she was very turned on. She tried not to snicker, but couldn’t stop it.

“Kiss me,” he whispered smugly. “You know you want to.”

That, like everything else about him, was irresistible. She turned her head—

“God, you’re disgusting.”

They both jumped, and looked at the woman in front of them, overlapping Jack’s left side, glaring at him. His expression darkened. “Brenda.”

She was about the same age as Lydia, prettier, with curly black hair and dressed in serviceable business attire. This was not one of Jack’s blowup dolls.

“Brenda here,” Jack said nastily, “thought she could get away with stealing from her firm. I blew the whistle as soon as one of my traders brought it to my attention. Followed the paper trail, built the case, had her arrested, and testified against her. Seven years, only four of which have gone by. Did you get out on parole or did you have to munch a few carpets?”

Brenda snarled at him.

He looked her up and down. “So what are you doing now? Data entry? That suit’s a long way from Bergdorf. You still married? How’re your kids? They’re probably in college by now, right? Student loans? Because you can’t skim?”

“You destroyed my life,” she hissed. “I could kill you for that, and the only reason I don’t shove you in front of a train is because there are witnesses.”

“I didn’t decide to steal somebody else’s money. You deserved whatever you got, and if you’re still blaming me, you didn’t get enough of it.”

“Did any of that affect you personally?” Lydia asked him, genuinely curious. “She didn’t work for you?”

He looked at her in shock. “No. Why would it have to? She was skimming and manipulating the market to do it.”

“You just couldn’t mind your own business, could you?” the woman barked.

Lydia’s lips pursed. Jack was furious, and it was a completely different side of him she wouldn’t have thought he possessed if she’d thought about it at all. He wasn’t pissed off that Brenda had stolen from him. He was pissed off that she’d stolen at all.

That was interesting.

Because it meant any actual relationship that could have been between them would end in a conversation like this, so it was good there wasn’t going to be a relationship. But before she could think about that any more deeply, she heard,

“Hi, Jack! Hi, Lydia!”

They both turned at the small voices that came from the small people plunging through the crowd. Lydia’s mouth tightened. “Simon told you not to go below Eighty-fifth and you’re on Wall Street?”

Mary huffed and folded her arms across her chest. “Simon’s not the boss of me.”

“She is when you need a place to sleep and eat and get medicine,” Lydia shot back. “Why can’t you just do what she asks you to do?”

“I let her,” Jesus said quietly, from where he stood behind Mary.

Jack’s eyebrow rose. “Let her? You mean you couldn’t stop her.”

Jesus shook his head soberly. “No. She does what I say.”

Lydia and Jack exchanged glances.

“Then tell her to stay at Simon’s,” Lydia said.

“If I don’t want to, why should I make her?”

“Because she’s been sick and you haven’t.”

“It’s the puppy-dog eyes,” Jack said out of the side of his mouth.

Lydia puffed a laugh. “Why didn’t you make her go to Simon when she got sick, then?”

Jesus scowled. “I didn’t know she was sick for a while, and then when I did, we were too far away to get there fast, which was why we needed money, to get a cab to get there. Fast.”

Well, now didn’t that make her feel stupid, especially when Jack started laughing.

“Oh. You’re welcome.”

The boy continued to scowl at her.

There was a small ruckus behind them, cops who were looking for two kids who’d jumped the stiles who were, apparently serial stile-jumpers.

Lydia gave the kids a stony look.

They both flushed.

“Stay close. And stop it. I’ll buy you MetroCards. And you better not sell them.”

“Well, aren’t you a born mother,” Jack muttered, turning toward the train tracks, ignoring Brenda. Brenda was ignoring them too. “A mean one.”

Lydia merely sniffed.

“Hey,” he said softly.

She looked at him and he leaned in again. She smiled against his lips and opened her mouth a little. Not much. Teasing him. Watching him tease her. Trying to kiss around their amusement.

“I knew it!” Mary crowed.

Jack laughed and turned his head to cast the child an exasperated smile. “You haven’t been conscious long enough to know anything, little girl.”

But she giggled and even Jesus seemed smugly pleased, as if he had been the matchmaker.

Aw, screw it.

Lydia liked him. He couldn’t see the thing her eyes did and he made her laugh. He wasn’t a braggart in the usual sense, he was straightforward and self-deprecating about his weaknesses, he hung out with his parents for God’s sake, and he thought her little digs were cute. He seemed genuinely interested in how her mind worked, enjoyed her company enough to keep trying, remembered what she told him, and was professionally impressed without feeling threatened, because he wasn’t a musician. She’d never been approached by or gone out with a man who wasn’t a musician or one who was as interested in her as he was himself—and men got very annoying very quickly when they started feeling professionally threatened.

Yes, Jack had a code of honor when it came to money and her financial purity wasn’t to his standard, but he treated women like shit. Lydia and Jack were attracted to each other, they liked talking to each other, they had shared a bizarre adventure, and he’d at least tried to make up for her botched audition, no matter how awry it had gone. He wanted to try again in spite of everything, including his grumpiness about it, which she found charming in itself.

“How ’bout it?” he whispered in her ear, his arm snaking around her waist and pulling her as close as possible. “Dinner, lunch, movies, Show Boat, chocolate, piano shopping, lemon drops and Old Fashioneds all week, then a fun weekend at my place. We can play tennis and watch Traders and talk about things smart people talk about while we’re making love by candlelight.”

She caught a little gasp and smiled when he nibbled on her earlobe, thinking about how he’d look and feel naked, against her, in her.

“I’ll stay in New York this week,” she whispered back, “but you have to earn the weekend. You’ve used up all your do-overs and then some.”

“Challenge accepted.”

The wind whipped through the tunnel and blew everyone’s hair back. There was a wall of people in front of them and a whole lot of people behind them. He let her go when a bunch of people shifted to the right.

“Hi, Jack,” came a purr from behind and to Jack’s left. They both looked over their shoulders. There stood a leggy—oh, brunette this time. Lydia was shocked. The woman was wearing a generically fashionable business suit, had a generically fashionable haircut, and had a generically beautiful face.

“Hi, Val,” Jack muttered.

She pointed to Lydia and gave her a generically friendly smile. “Girlfriend?”

“Friend of a friend.” Jack returned impatiently.

“Oh, friends. That explains the kiss. I get it.”

He heaved a sigh.

“Isn’t he shit in bed?” the woman asked Lydia.

“I wouldn’t know,” Lydia replied gamely. “I don’t sleep with dickheads.”

That took her aback. Jack snorted. Brenda muttered, “Yet.”

The wall of people in front of them parted a little in anticipation of the train that was almost there, just enough for Lydia and the kids to step forward. She slipped her arm through Jack’s and pulled him toward her and back a little, hoping the crowd would flow between him and the third ex-lover to show up while she was with him, although he and his nemesis were still pressed together a little.

“Do you they follow you everywhere you go?” Lydia muttered.

“Not until you showed up,” he replied caustically. He turned to Val who had found the same hole in the people wall, and now was standing right beside him. “What do you want, Val?”

“This,” she said sweetly, and shoved.

Lydia still had Jack’s elbow, so the shove took her, too, but she was a little behind him and she planted her feet instinctively, pulling backward so he wouldn’t go over the platform into the nose of the train.

Brenda …

… whom he stumbled against …

did.

---

8: SLIPSTREAM

SCREAMS ERUPTED. Lydia stood dazed, the train wall flashing past a foot from her face. Jack’s face was half that distance and he wasn’t moving at all.

Screams.

More screams.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t distinguish anything, just … the crack between the train and the concrete, and Jack’s hand splayed on it about six inches from the train. Somewhere under there was a woman who’d just threatened to push Jack off, but had ended up there herself by some weird quirk of fate.

There wasn’t even any blood, nothing to mark her death except the screech of brakes, the screams of a few people around them who’d seen … something. Something awful.

Jack was supposed to be dead right now. Lydia would be too.

She barely felt a tug on her right hand until her still-sore knuckles were squeezed. Hard. “Ow!” she screeched and looked down. There, a little Hispanic girl and her older brother, speaking to her as if from far away, their arms waving wildly, and the little girl tugging on her. She had an amazing grip for such a little thing.

Run. Run. You have to run.

The words came at her like in a dream, or in water. Slow. Muffled. It barely registered that they were speaking Spanish.

She stumbled backward when she was jerked, and her other shoulder protested when it resisted because her arm was still in Jack’s.

Lydia! Run! Make Jack run!

Run. From what? They hadn’t done anything. That … person … had shoved Jack, intending him to go over the ledge and into the train.

The screams around them grew slowly more distinct until she realized they were all looking … at … her.

And Jack.

That’s him! Don’t let him get away!

Run! Run!

The children were tugging at both of them. The little girl on Lydia. The little boy dragging Jack back from the yellow line. They were small. Should they be that strong?

Then she snapped to. “Oh, God,” she whispered as she looked around. She knew it would look bad, running. She knew the cameras would have caught the whole incident. She knew he’d been pushed and thus had fallen against the woman in front of him. Yes, there was a lot of bad blood between him and Brenda, and though there were several witnesses to the argument, that didn’t mean everybody had heard it or would draw the right conclusions even if they had.

Somebody grab him! Don’t let him get away!

He was dark. In work clothes. On Wall Street. At rush hour.

A white woman was dead.

People were pointing at him.

Lydia! Jack! You have to run! The cops are coming!

And he didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut. He was not going to get to an arraignment without getting his butt kicked by the cops.

COME—ON!

Or worse.

Lydia tugged on Jack, but he was on his knees, his nose still inches from the train. He still wasn’t moving. He was barely breathing. She pulled on his arm. He didn’t budge. She pulled harder. He still didn’t budge. She grabbed his hair. “Get up,” she snarled and pulled until he started fighting her, turning himself over, trying to rush her. She let go of his hair and dragged him into the crowd behind them, who hadn’t seen what happened. They just knew someone had taken a header into an oncoming subway train.

The children were leading the way, running at breakneck speed, but Lydia couldn’t hope to keep up. Her legs were too short and too slow. She was half dragging a traumatized bond trader who’d just witnessed himself pushing a woman into a train, the train that should’ve killed him and taken Lydia with him. There were no cops after them yet because the crowd was too thick and there was too much confusion, the front car of the train halfway into the tunnel.

But it wouldn’t be long before the mounted patrol would be—

Metal was striking asphalt and concrete.

Lots of it.

Rhythmically.

Getting closer.

Horseshoes.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, her father’s ME report flashing through her brain. Jack might be cleared before his arraignment, but not before some overenthusiastic cops got their hands on him.

She stopped cold and let Jack bump into her. She slapped his face. Slapped hard. Until he focused enough to get mad. “Jack!” she snapped when she had his full fury directed at her. “You are in a lot of trouble. You have to run. Please, please— Run.”

“Go!” Mary screamed, pointing to an alley. “Go there! Hide!”

Lydia did as she was told, dragging a marginally less catatonic Jack, even though the children took off in the other direction.

Once he got his feet, he seemed sentient enough to follow her. The horses were gaining ground and shouts could be heard above the regular noise of the city.

“There!” somebody yelled. “Catch that kid!”

Lydia made the alley entrance and jerked Jack behind a Dumpster just as half the horses turned and half went past the alley entrance at full gallop.

They were after the children.

She had a momentary clutch of fear for them, but they were kids, they were wily, and they were smart. They’d been living on the streets for God only knew how long, stealing and running messages up and down Manhattan.

They had also been smart and quick enough to get two not-thinking adults off the platform.

Instincts first.

Shock indulgence second.

Jack was stiff. Silent. Catatonic, yes. She was thirsty as hell. She wanted to puke. They had to get somewhere to hide, but now that she was thinking, she knew she couldn’t go back to Sebastian’s and the police would know Jack’s name soon enough. His place would be locked down and his accounts frozen immediately.

They wouldn’t know who Lydia or the children were.

Where were the cameras pointed? Would they see the push? Could camera evidence trump eyewitness accounts of the heated argument? Would there have been any witnesses to the exchange between Val and Lydia? Would there be anything that could get past the wall of Jack’s appearance before he could be cleared of suspicion?

She needed her bike. There was no way they could get …

Simon’s. Simon was the hub of Spanish Harlem’s underground. She would know how to hide them until Lydia could make a plan. Her apartment door was well camouflaged. Her exam room could be hidden with the close of a door that looked like a wall with a crazed mirror and broken-down dresser. Lydia was absolutely certain that apartment and likely the rest of the building was lousy with secret rooms and passageways.

But they were downtown and Simon was a hundred blocks north. They couldn’t take the subway. Couldn’t take the bus. Couldn’t take a cab. Couldn’t walk out in the open. Didn’t have a change of clothes, and they were covered in … something black and gooey.

“Oh, God,” she moaned again, dropping her face in her hand and rubbing her forehead. “Think,” she whispered. “Think, think, think. Help me, Daddy.”

Just keep doing what you’re doing and for God’s sake, don’t let him talk.

Her bike. She could get through traffic, go over land, and outrun horses. She didn’t know Manhattan as well as a motorcycle cop would, but she’d have a head start because they wouldn’t be expecting to have to chase a Harley. She could also get off the island if she had to because they wouldn’t have time to put down spike strips across every tunnel and every bridge.

But how could she get it? It was parked in Sebastian’s parking lot—

She had to get to a phone. Call Sebastian. He knew how to ride. He could meet her somewhere.

Phone.

Phone.

Water.

God, water. She was so thirsty.

“Daisy,” he croaked.

She started and twisted to look at him, leaning back against the wall, looking to the sky, his chest heavy.

DAISY?!

“What did I just do?” he croaked.

“You just about got murdered,” she snapped.

Daisy! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

Lydia gritted her teeth.

“No, I—”

“You were pushed. You put your dick in the wrong hole and about got killed for it.”

“Karma,” he whispered.

“Yeah, well, if this is karma, it’s being unreasonable. Look,” she said frantically. “I have to get to a phone. You have to stay here. Covered. Hidden. If you’re gone when I get back, I’ll assume you got arrested.”

“But … if I didn’t push her … if it was an accident, I should just—”

“No!” she barked. “You won’t live long enough to get to a lawyer.”

He wrinkled his brow at her. “Why?” he asked, dazed.

“Okay, dying might be an exaggeration. But you just— We need to wait this out until they look at the evidence, get all the witnesses’ statements. They’ll have cameras on the platform and in the train cab, but you did have an argument with her. And I doubt you know why staying silent is a right. We have to hide and wait until they sort it all out so you don’t get yourself beaten half to death by some cops.”

“Daisy—”

“My name is Lydia,” she snapped.

“It doesn’t suit you,” he said vaguely, still staring up into the sky.

He’s right, you know.

“Not now, Mingo,” she gritted.

“Daisy,” Jack whispered. “Daisy Dukes.”

He was punch drunk. In shock. It was pointless to argue with him no matter how much she hated that name.

“Jack,” she said with forced calm, stroking his forehead, his cheek. “Look at me.”

He did. Straight into her eyes. The one time she needed a man to succumb to her sparkly eyes, he couldn’t.

“Please. Stay here. Get under these whatever they are and hide. Do you understand me?”

“She didn’t deserve to die. But I— Did I kill her? I killed her. I just— She went over because I—”

“No! God, Jack, that is exactly the crap they’ll make you say. You did not kill her. That Val person killed her. She was trying to kill you and somebody got in the way. Promise me,” she said frantically, standing, finding the whatever it was under her feet to be filthy rags. Gross.

She picked some up, grimaced, and started rubbing at her clothes. It was March. It was chilly. She shouldn’t be in shorts and she looked like a tourist. “The children know where we are,” she said as she blotted, her chest heaving, her breath short. “If they come back and I’m not here yet, tell them I said for you to stay put. You’re bigger than they are so don’t let them push you around. They’re going to do what they’re going to do no matter what I say.”

Thank God.

---

9: NOT GOOD, NOT NICE, JUST RIGHT

SHIT, WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? It wasn’t normal Manhattan noise.

Shit, Jack had the worst headache. Had he drunk too much last night? No, not possible. He couldn’t function without sleep and he couldn’t sleep if he drank too much and he couldn’t hold his alcohol worth a damn.

Shit, that noise was getting closer and it was going to kill him. He groaned when it got close enough he imagined he could feel heat from it. It was deafening, echoing off the walls like that.

It died.

The ringing in his ears was almost as bad.

“Jack.”

He knew that voice. He didn’t know from where. He groaned. He didn’t want to get up, didn’t want to get out of his nice, comfortable bed that— God, it reeked. What had he been doing?

His eyes fluttered open to see that cute little librarian Sebastian had introduced him to. What was her name again? “Hey, Daisy,” he slurred. “What are you doing here? Did we fuck?”

“My name is not Daisy,” she snapped. “And no, we didn’t.”

Until he could remember her name, she was Daisy and until he could remember that he hadn’t fucked her, he would assume he had.

“It was really good, wasn’t it?”

“Not for me,” she snapped again. She was very snappy for a woman who’d just gotten very well laid. “I need you to get up and get un-dizzy.”

Un-dizzy. That was clever. It was exactly what he needed to do.

He felt her pulling on his arm, pulling him upright. He groaned and clutched his head. “Oh, my God,” he groaned, closing his eyes because the light hurt.

“Yeah, exactly.” She plopped her cute little butt down beside him. He could see it in his mind. She stayed there with him for a while, silent. Holding his hand. She was trembling. Then he noticed her body was shaking. He opened one eye to see her with her knees drawn up, her face buried in them, and her shoulders quaking.

“Why are you crying?” he asked in wonder. “Was I that bad?”

She didn’t answer. Didn’t seem to hear him.

He looked around. He was in a very narrow alley, dark, mysterious. Filthy and rank. There was a shiny ivory motorcycle in front of him that proudly proclaimed itself to be a Harley-Davidson. It had lettering and thin red lines on the outer edges that made it look like it came out of a 1950s diner.

He looked down at himself, dressed in the clothes he wore to do chores around his parents’ house.

This was a dream, right?

Bond traders didn’t just wake up in back alleys, sitting on— He looked down. —yards and yards of nasty, filthy fabric, dressed in their worst clothes, next to weeping women who were not leggy blondes, with Harley-Davidsons a foot from their faces.

Especially on a weekday.

“Oh, God,” he whispered as it all came back. The jolt of fear as he fell toward the oncoming train, but in twisting to keep himself from going over the edge had knocked someone else off the platform.

A someone else he despised, but who did not deserve to die.

No wonder Daisy was sobbing.

But … how did he get here?

No, that part was still a mystery. The last thing he remembered was the look of terror on Brenda’s face and then …

Thump.

It sounded just like that. Thump. And not even that loudly. A funny little word rendered in funny ways in Saturday morning cartoons.

Thump.

He swallowed.

Hard.

No blood. No body parts.

Thump.

He was thirsty. So thirsty.

“Daisy,” he whispered. “I need to go to the police.”

“No!” she screeched. “Right now, that is the worst place to be.”

That made no sense. “Why? They’ll know it was an accident, right? It was an accident, right? I think? Or … ?”

“It was,” she said through her crying. “But that won’t help you between the time you’re arrested and whenever you’re cleared and released.”

“But— The cops don’t have anything against me. What reason would they have to beat me down?”

“You are a dark man in torn-up clothes who appears to have pushed a white woman with whom you just had a heated argument, wherein she threatened to push you in front of a train, in front of a train.”

The heated argument, he understood, but—

A dark man.

Torn-up clothes.

Oh, yes. Now he understood that too.

Sort of.

“But … I’m a Wall Street stud,” he said, feeling a little dazed and confused. “I don’t— I’m rich. I’m a CEO. I’m not just some random immigrant walking around.”

“You are too! The maître d’. The guy at the chocolate shop. You might not have had any problems getting a cab or had any issues with police, but now you do and now you’re in crappy clothes so you don’t even look rich and now you’re going to find out how the brown half lives.”

Yeah, okay, he got the cold shoulder sometimes. When he was a kid in a passing-for-white family in a thoroughly white neighborhood, people said things with varying degrees of innocent curiosity to hatefulness, but he had important shit to do so he didn’t pay attention until it got in his way.

His paternal grandfather J.R. hated Jack because his dad had married an Indian girl and turned out such a dark-skinned child. But J.R. lived in England and when Jack had made his contempt known in a satisfactory way, he was done. He had important shit to do.

His maternal grandfather Amarjeet, who was as much an asshole as J.R., didn’t like Jack because he hated that his daughter had married a white man. He made the mistake of assuming Jack was as stupid as every other white man he’d ever met. But Amarjeet lived in India and trouncing him soundly in chess several times in a row was satisfactory. Jack had important shit to do.

It had bummed him out every time he asked a girl out and her parents forbid it because he was dark, but it hadn’t happened often and since it didn’t affect his goals or his path to them, he dealt with it. He had important shit to do.

If he had had problems getting a cab, he wouldn’t have thought about why while he was cursing a blue streak. He had important shit to do.

Jack’s blond younger brother had gotten arrested for a DUI as a teenager. His light-skinned youngest brother, who looked only vaguely Indian, had been arrested for petit theft, the result of a teenage dare. Jack’s father had a lead foot and the tickets to prove it. Jack’s only interaction with the police was when he called them to haul out a boss or coworker or employee in handcuffs on fraud charges. That had happened more than a few times. It was also how his name got on a building on Wall Street. He didn’t have so much as a parking ticket. Dealing with petty red tape like that took time and energy he didn’t have. He had important shit to do.

He’d never had a problem with his academics, never had a problem in his sports, never had a problem buying his apartment or car, never had a problem getting a job. That was what racism was about, right?

“Jack!”

“Um … ”

Now he dated women who found his looks a bonus to his bank account, and he was partial to gorgeous leggy blondes who weren’t shy about showing him off. He didn’t mind redheads sometimes. Occasionally he dated brunettes, but clearly, that brunette had been a bad choice. He immediately swore off brunettes. But what had he done to her that she would kill him? Maybe she was just psycho. Maybe that was why he’d broken up with her. He didn’t remember.

He was with a little white piano teacher from fucking Kansas. How could anybody mistake him for anything other than what he really was? And how could any of that penny-ante shit be parlayed into this pathological paranoia of the police not being fair and impartial because of his skin color, for God’s sake?

“No,” he said calmly, trying to explain this to her. “Maître d’s and random assholes aside, it doesn’t work that way for me.”

“You are not special!” she hissed. “They will eventually figure out who you are, but until then you’re just a random Latino thug who killed a white woman after arguing with her. And then, when they do find out, you’ll be a rich, arrogant, greedy Wall Street thief who had a personal vendetta, and deserves what he gets and by the way, let’s seize his assets. Even if he didn’t kill her, he’s probably driven people to suicide.”

“Well, of course I have,” he said as if she were thick. “I don’t put up with thieves and cheats, and if they can’t take the heat when I call the cops, that’s on them. But I am scrupulously honest. Everybody knows this. Also, I am obviously Indian. Your eyesight is shit.”

She moved—quickly—until she was straddling him and had his chin in a painful grip. “Let’s say you’re right,” she growled. “But if you stay with me, you won’t be in an interview room or holding cell while they get all this figured out, without poking at you to get you to say something incriminating. The worst that will happen is you’ll get your hand smacked for running from the scene of a crime. That might or might not be a felony, I don’t know, but it’s not going to ruin your life. Your financial integrity isn’t going to help you. Also, you look almost exactly like my grandmother’s dead boyfriend, who was Cuban.”

He jerked his face out of her hand and calculated the odds. Not taking into account all that bullshit she spewed about what he looked like (an old dead Cuban, for God’s sake) and how cops could be expected to treat him because of it and what he did for a living, if she was right about being taken in, he’d be booked, jailed, arraigned, and let out on bond. His assets might or might not be frozen. If he did what Daisy wanted, he might be booked after it was all over with for being a pain in the ass, pay a fine, and go on with his life even if he had to sue to have his assets unfrozen.

The board of directors and shareholders and stock price were the sticking point. He explained this.

That made her pause. She sat back on her heels—she was still straddling him—and looked up, running her tongue on the inside of her bottom lip, thinking out loud.

“You’re arrested for murder. You’re charged. You’re cleared. How long do you think that would take?”

“Um … a couple of weeks?”

“That depends on if they think they can get you on it, which they do and they would, just to say they got justice, in which case, you would be offered a plea, which you would refuse, which means it would go to trial. It will take months.”

“You have a very poor opinion of the police, but I’ll go with it for now.”

“If you’re a fugitive, you’ll be assumed to have done it on purpose—well, you already are—but it will take them, at most, a week to figure out you didn’t—”

“And who did, and why,” he offered helpfully.

“That’s irrelevant. The goal is to keep you hidden until we know that they know you didn’t do it on purpose. The goal is to get you off without getting you beat up between now and your arraignment.”

She was an idiot if she thought that would happen. “My goal is to get you off.”

She ignored that. “And your board and shareholders might actually get why you did that, and that it might have been the smart tactical move. Two weeks. Your stock price tanks. Your board’s about to fire you and change the name on the building. Your shareholders are out for your blood. They can’t do anything in two weeks, especially if Melinda steps up and takes the reins. By the time it’s over, they’ll look incompetent and disloyal for not backing you publicly.”

At which point he could legitimately get rid of them and build a new board, which plan he, Sebastian, Melinda, and Bucho were already setting up. Slowly. Carefully. If Daisy was right, people would expect him to clear out his board.

“But— Running looks so … cowardly.”

She looked at him like he was stupid. “And you think doing the perp walk looks cool? You’re a CEO. For you, once that becomes public, running is a big middle finger to the cops. Standing around waiting for the justice system to do right by you while you’re in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs makes you look like an ignorant pussy. I wouldn’t trust you with my money if I saw you doing the perp walk. I would think, ‘What, he wasn’t smart enough to take off and lie low for a while? How naïve can that guy be?’”

Jack thought about that very carefully because that was, indeed, a problem. He’d had the same reaction every time he saw footage of a Big Swinging Dick getting marched out of a building in an expensive suit, in handcuffs, with his head down: Pussies. I wouldn’t let myself get taken like that, even if I had done it. Even if people were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, he’d still have the perp walk footage and newspaper images following him around for the rest of his life.

“Running also makes me look guilty.”

“If you head for the Caymans, yes. But if you stay in town, people won’t know what to think.”

That was probably true. And if he popped up to cooperate the second his innocence was— God, was he really buying this bullshit?

If he disappeared, he could return on his terms. It wouldn’t look much better, but without reporters and images, and with the rationale explained, a PR team could spin his image much better than they could spin a perp walk. He was a salesman and he knew human nature: People would remember him longer if they had perp walk images stuck in their heads, which meant they would consider him guilty no matter the outcome. If people only had images of Jack being pushed in front of a train, they would remember him as a target of murder—and people’s opinions on whether he deserved to die or not would work in his favor. Blackwood, Blackwood … Wasn’t he involved in— No, I don’t remember. Something … Oh, right. He got shoved into an oncoming train. Too bad he lived to tell about it.

It was bullshit. It was all bullshit. But he might as well err on the side of strategically advantageous public relations.

She leaned forward and got in his face, startling him. “Even if you don’t want to do this for yourself,” she whispered harshly, “do it for me.”

He scowled immediately. “Why do you care?”

Her mouth flattened. “I care because I know what happened. I care because you almost got murdered. I care because I almost got murdered. I care because that woman who died, that family needs to know it can’t honestly blame you. I care because my dad was raped and killed by cops during a traffic stop!”

Jack drew back so fast he bashed his head on the wall, his eyes wide, his mouth open.

He was from Cuba.

“I don’t want to go through this again! Get your head together so you can ride. Hold on tight and lean into the turns.”

---

10: SPLITTING LANES

TO LYDIA’S SURPRISE, nobody looked twice at them. Rather, nobody with a badge looked twice at them. They were filthy, on a bike with filth-smeared tags, a bike that might or might not be expensive because it was filthy too, and she didn’t drive in a way that would catch anyone’s attention. She didn’t know the helmet laws here, so she made Jack wear the helmet and she braided her hair as tightly as she could. It’d be loose in two seconds flat, but she tried anyway.

Jack, however, was a problem.

She stopped a quarter of the way up Third Avenue and turned. “If you lean against a turn, you will cause the back of the bike to slide out from under us. Lean into the turn with me. If you remember anything about the laws of physics, drag them out of your lizard brain and follow them.”

Jesus and Mary were pacing Simon’s apartment when Lydia and Jack arrived. With one gesture from Simon, Jesus dragged Lydia out and showed her where to park her bike, which was in a storage facility two blocks over and six blocks up that was packed with really nice furniture. It took the two of them most of the afternoon to clear out enough space and pack it all back in again.

“You’re a better passenger than Jack,” she said stonily, almost to herself.

He didn’t say anything as they began walking back, keeping to the shadows. She wrapped her arm around him and hugged him to her. He melted against her and hugged her, tucking his face in her ribs and taking ragged breaths. Because he was frightened or relieved or … She didn’t know. She sat down on the sidewalk, her back to the wall, and had him sit beside her.

“Talk to me,” she said in Spanish.

He didn’t. Not at first. And then not much. But in Spanish. He was afraid for Jack. He didn’t want to lose them. He liked them, liked the way they talked and communicated, sharp. Quick. Smart. Raw. That surprised her. Jesus liked that she spoke Spanish, that she knew his lifestyle a little, that she could navigate it well enough to help them. And herself. And Jack.

“Why do you care about Jack?” she asked quietly.

He shrugged. “He makes me think of my father.”

“How so?”

“His looks.” Her eyebrow rose. Jack probably didn’t need to hear that. “What he laughs at. That he takes care of people like it’s nothing.”

That was an astute thing for a kid his age.

“Where’d you come from?”

He shrugged. “Brooklyn. Stuff happened in my family. I ran away.”

“Mary’s not your sister?”

He shook his head. “I found her.” He paused. “She found me. She never left.”

Which, Lydia took it, meant she was both a burden to him, and a help and comfort, and he was conflicted about it. “She does what you say because you take care of her.”

He nodded.

“And you let her do what she wants because she helps you.”

He nodded.

Now was not the time to criticize a child’s child-rearing skills, so she said nothing and they sat there, Jesus practically in her lap, clinging to her. Lydia didn’t know what made her his insta-mother, but she wrapped her arms around him and petted him like Lola had petted her once upon a time. And she hummed to him as Lola had hummed to her once upon a time, the song she was sooooo sick of but, even with a head stuffed with music, was the only one she could remember at the moment.

At the Copa, Copacabana …

Gradually, he settled his full weight into her and began to snore. What to do, what to do. They couldn’t stay out here all night; it was too cold for that and neither of them were dressed for it. He needed the sleep. He needed to be away from Mary for a while, her demands, her tantrums, her obstinacy. He needed comfort of his own, someone to take care of him.

“Hola.”

Lydia looked up to see a large man looming over them. Her heart started racing immediately. The streetlamp was behind him, so he was effectively hidden.

“I’m Piri,” he said in Spanish. “The cabbie who brought you here last week.”

“Oh,” she murmured, her heart settling. “Um. Thank you.”

“My boys and I have been looking for you. Simon says to get your ass back to her place.”

Her heart settled. “I, um—” Her voice was creaky. She cleared it. “I have a lapful of exhausted boy.”

“I’ll carry him.”

With that, he bent down and took the boy from her, hefted him against his large body like a toddler lying across a father’s chest, and helped Lydia up with one big heave.

They walked together, not speaking, not rushing. Sort of alone.

“That was pretty ballsy,” he muttered after a while.

“How does it play on TV?”

“Anybody with eyes can see he fell and hit the lady in front of him and that you caught him before he crashed into the side wall of the train. It doesn’t show he was pushed.”

She started. “Oh, you talked to him.”

“No, Mary. I guess she was frantic when she got here. Scared. It took a long time to get the story out of Jesus. They’ll do a lot of little things and they’ve been around some bad people and bad things going down, but I don’t think they’ve ever seen anybody die, much less like that.”

Lydia sighed.

“The news is playing up the fact that he had an argument with her. They’re digging up his history with her. There’s motive. They wonder if he staged the fall. So it sounds like he might be guilty if you’re not looking at the tape. Most people just listen to the news while they do their business.”

“And running?”

“The reporters don’t seem to know what to think about it.”

“The kids got us out,” she muttered. “We were in shock. I’d have never thought to run in time and he wouldn’t have at all.”

“They like you.”

Lydia shrugged. “We rescued them.”

“They’ve been rescued before. Lots of times. They’re useful so people take care of them. Errands and such. Like tools, you know? But you rescued them without asking anything of them. No strings. No favors owed. No threats.”

“I guess I knew that,” Lydia muttered.

“Manuelito and Paco—the kids you worked over and fed. They’ll help where they can.”

“They don’t like me.”

“They don’t like you the way a teenager doesn’t like his mom when she’s laying down the law, but knows she’s going to take care of him anyway.” He paused. “They like being treated like kids, even if they resent it.”

Yes, she remembered that feeling. It had made her feel safe, even if it had made her mad.

Nooooowwww you get it.

“Shut up,” she whispered.

Say it. Say the words, DAISY.

“No. And stop calling me Daisy.”

Say it or I will give you an earworm you can’t get rid of for days.

“You were right,” she muttered. She hated it when he was right.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

“You’re Cuban,” Piri said suddenly. “Your accent’s fresh off the raft.”

“I grew up in a Cuban neighborhood.”

“Not here.”

“No.” But she didn’t want to talk about that. It hurt too much. “So Manuelito and Paco. What’s their story?”

“Their mom died a while back. Bad flu. Simon kept it from spreading, but she couldn’t save their mom.” He paused. He paused for a long time. “She was my wife. They’re my sons.” Her jaw dropped.

“So … thank you. I don’t know what you said to them, but they needed a mother like you that day. Every day.”

They walked several blocks in silence and slipped into the labyrinth without notice. At Simon’s door, the big man let Jesus slide down his body. Jesus was awake. She wondered how long he’d been awake and how much he’d heard.

“Thank you,” she said as Jesus opened the door.

“Anything for you,” Piri said softly as he disappeared into the shadows. “Anything for you.”

---

11: CAMP CONSPIRACY

JACK AWOKE FROM his doze when the twin bed he was on—in a closet only big enough for one—shifted. “What the—”

“Go back to sleep,” came a soft female voice in the dark.

His eyes popped open and soon enough they adjusted to the darkness to see the silhouette of a small curvy woman taking her shoes off. “What are you doing in here?” he asked gruffly.

“Sleeping with you,” she drawled sarcastically. “Four days ahead of schedule.”

It was a twin bed. Furthermore, it was fairly high up on the wall to allow for camouflage and storage underneath it. Unless she intended to fuck him, he wasn’t interested in sharing sleepytime in a child-sized bunk bed.

“I don’t like sleeping with people,” he muttered, not budging when she climbed up the ladder and tried to move him over.

“After all that and you were going to make me do the walk of shame?”

She sounded hurt. “Noooo,” he drawled snidely. “But I have a king-sized bed. You stay on your side, I stay on mine. No spooning.”

She shoved him. She was really strong. “Right now, your wishes and likes and wants and needs are irrelevant. Welcome to the Eeyore side of life, Tigger.”

He growled and moved over, feeling her pull the covers back and settle in. By necessity, she had to snuggle up against him, so he turned on his side and let her burrow her back side into his front side. That was probably a mistake.

“Tell your dick to go back to sleep. My microdick is not interested in making out.”

He snorted a laugh and slid his arm around her waist because, well, he had nowhere else to put it.

“I hate this,” she grumbled as she shifted around, trying to get comfortable. She didn’t have anywhere to put her arms, either.

“You can’t sleep somewhere else?”

“No. All of Simon’s space is taken, the kids are on the couch, there’s no room on the floor, and if one of us has to sleep on the exam table it’s going to be you.”

“Like hell. How are the kids?”

“Mary’s calmer than she was. Mad at me because I wouldn’t let her have one of the brownies I made. She said, ‘I saved your life!’ I said, ‘And I’m saving yours because if you get any more hyper I’m going to kill you.’”

Jack started to laugh. He knew the situation was dire, but he’d take his laughs where he could get them.

“I heard you reading to them.”

She puffed a tiny laugh. “Mary couldn’t sit still but Jesus ate it up. He would’ve loved it if I’d read to him all night, but I—” A yawn caught her. Caught Jack too.

“Yeah,” he sighed.

She sighed and either found a comfortable position or gave up trying.

“G’night, Daisy.”

“G’night, Jack.”

At which point, she turned over, buried her face in his chest, and began to sob.

---

12: GALE

LYDIA WENT OUT the next day despite Simon’s insistence she stay in. After all, all they had to do was wait out the justice system and watch the news until they knew Jack was in the clear and his assets unfrozen. But they also needed to avoid discussing it because it was too fresh, too traumatic, too … awful.

They needed clothes. They needed cash. They needed … books. Those kids couldn’t read, which was likely why they were the go-to kids for messages. Lydia was scraping for any task that would allow her to not think about it.

“I need to know why my fucking lawyer isn’t out there front and center, giving a statement!” Jack bellowed.

There was that.

But Lydia had her own agenda, and for that, she needed to get to Sebastian. She couldn’t do that in stained clothes that were now ash anyway. These old buildings still had incinerators, which was convenient in Simon’s line of work. So Lydia was, once again, in scrubs.

Jack had curled his lip at her. “That’s fucking awful.”

“Hey, don’t talk to Daisy like that!” Mary said, pounding her little fists into her little hips and glaring up at him.

Daisy had stuck, much as she hated it. The kids liked it. Simon liked it. Jack liked it. The guy at the neighborhood bodega liked it. Manuelito and Paco liked it. Piri liked it. They all agreed Lydia did not suit her.

But Lydia liked her name because it was part of her father’s family tradition: St. Lydia, his family’s patron saint. A woman unbound to a man and rich in her own right because she was a brilliant businesswoman who sold purple dye. At least one woman in every generation of each branch of his family had been named Lydia, charged with carrying on the family tradition of liberty and capitalism.

And then came Fidel Castro.

So far as her father had ever known, she was the last one, yet even he hadn’t referred to her as Lydia except to outsiders.

Charbonneau was a mystery. Her father would never tell her why he’d slapped a French surname on a girl with a Cuban family.

Her middle name, on the other hand …

Daisy!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

And there he was again. She rolled her eyes.

Don’t fight it, doll. You are Daisy. Accept it. Embrace it. Flaunt it.

Yes, Mingo certainly had flaunted who he was.

And then died for it.

“You knew better,” she snarled.

Aw, kid, I’m sorry.

“And now this.”

You might have overreacted a bit.

“And whose fault is that?!”

I said I was sorry! Daisy.

Of all the flowers Jack could’ve picked …

“He said it because of what he wished I were wearing,” she growled, “based on an eighties TV show about a bunch of backwoods southern rednecks, because he thinks people from Kansas are backwoods rednecks. He can’t even find Kansas on a map!”

It doesn’t matter how he got there, just that he did. That man knows you.

Yes, he did.

Doesn’t mean he’s good for you, though.

No, he wasn’t.

She sighed and trudged on in scrubs that were so big she had to take them in, and Keds that had been scrubbed until only traces of filth were left. And she was not allowed to get her bike. She took the train to Sebastian’s stop, kept her head down and tried to blend in with the businesspeople, and slipped down the ramp to the garage. The attendants recognized her as a tenant and distracted the beat cops stalking around the building until she was out of sight.

They were going to get a huge tip.

She called Blackwood Securities once she got up to Sebastian’s apartment, but he was not taking calls and she didn’t want to leave her name. “Yes, please tell him to call home.” She had showered and changed, and was putting as much as she could in her backpack when Sebastian walked in with another man, younger than she, blond, in a gray suit with a pink tie.

“You’re Victoria’s old roommate from KU?” he asked.

She nodded.

“That was either the dumbest or most brilliant move I’ve ever seen,” he said calmly as he dropped his briefcase on a couch and took a seat.

She blinked, shocked.

But Sebastian was livid. “You sit your ass down right now and tell us everything.”

She gestured to the blond. “I don’t know him.”

“Oh. Knox Hilliard. My cousin. Jack’s new lawyer.”

“I know who he is,” she said testily. “Who he is not is my lawyer.”

“I am now,” he rumbled. “Talk.”

Suddenly tired, Lydia plopped into a cushy chair and began talking. Several times Sebastian interjected with questions or sarcastic observations, but Knox never spoke. He simply listened, which made him the more sympathetic of the two. Finally she looked at Sebastian and said, “Shut up. I’m telling this story.” Knox’s mouth twitched.

When she was finished, she expected Sebastian to start yelling at her again, but he was silent, looking off into the distance, out to the next building over. Knox said nothing for a while until: “I see your logic. I can’t fault it under the circumstances.”

Knowing his history, that didn’t surprise her.

“What do you know about this woman?”

“Nothing, except her name is Val and she’s a brunette.” Sebastian’s eyebrows rose and Lydia nodded sagely. “I was shocked, too.”

Sebastian laughed.

“I haven’t had a chance to ask Jack. He’s still really shaken up, feels like he could’ve done something to keep Brenda from falling.”

“The tapes are explicit that he fell,” Knox said calmly. “The problem is the argument he had with her, and speculation that he took the opportunity to stage the fall. They would have to prove that.” He looked at Sebastian. “Do you know anything about the ex?”

“No. I don’t know a fraction of his women and he purges his little black book on a regular basis. Odds are she’s a stewardess running the Atlanta flights.”

She stared at him, confused. “Atlanta? What’s in Atlanta?”

“Wall Street South. Blackwood Securities has a huge office there.”

“That’s where we start,” Knox said.

“Do they know who I am?”

Knox shook his head. “They can see you and that you kept him from going over, but your back’s to the tape.”

“The kids?”

“Witnesses remember the argument, and they only remember that because it interrupted your rather, ah, colorful banter with Jack, which included your agenda for the weekend. People were really invested in that conversation.” Lydia flushed. Sebastian groaned. “They remember that you are a music professor from Kansas and he’s a CEO who was running errands. They remember a conversation with children, but they don’t remember seeing them. They’re not on camera.”

“If they heard all that, then they had to have heard her threaten to shove him off the platform.”

Knox nodded. “She’s no saint, but killing isn’t Jack’s style. He put her in jail. He got the money back for her clients. He saved her boss’s ass because he didn’t catch the theft.” He paused. “Jack does have friends, whether he knows that or not, whether he wants them or not. He seems to be carelessly generous. With his time, his money.”

“He doesn’t notice.”

“He doesn’t,” Sebastian concurred. “What everyone else in the world calls generous, he just sees it as getting a job done. Giving people the resources to get the job done.”

“His other selling point,” Knox went on, “is that he has a reputation for being scrupulously honest.”

Jack did know that, though she doubted that would make much difference to anybody.

“His assets are frozen,” Knox said matter-of-factly, “but you probably expected that.”

Lydia nodded.

“I can’t say what effect his running will have on public opinion, but the media’s milking it for the drama and we may have to get through a jury selection. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but I don’t know how invested they are in getting anyone on the hook for her death to say they got justice, forcing the defense to prove innocence. That’s caught me flat-footed before and I don’t want to deal with it in court with my client looking at me. I also don’t want him in my way or in my ear, telling me what to do.”

“Which he will do,” Sebastian agreed. So did Lydia.

“So I’m not going to recommend he turn himself in, even to me, and I don’t want to know where he is.”

That was what she expected to happen, so she only nodded.

“The down side is I won’t know how to get in touch with you.”

“Our kids,” she muttered, looking out the window at the East River. “They’re runners. If we can set up a message exchange point, they can do it.”

Knox’s eyebrow rose. “You’d pull kids into this?”

“Those kids got them off that platform,” Sebastian said sharply. “They couldn’t have done it themselves.”

Knox’s mouth tightened. “Fine.”

Lydia watched this go back and forth, her spine tingling in dread but her heart lightening a little at the demonstration that Jack did have friends, or at least allies.

“Am I in trouble?” Lydia asked hesitantly.

Knox shrugged. “Depends on what happens with Jack. Fleeing the scene of a crime, maybe, if we can prove Jack was pushed. A couple of other piddly things that can be cured with a fine.” Knox smiled at her then. It was a nice smile. Gentle. Warm. Comforting. “It’s not as bad as it feels like. Keep your heads down. I want to work without him.”

“Jack’s worried about the board. About Blackwood Securities not backing him, using this as an opportunity to oust him.”

Sebastian snorted. “Melinda made her stand immediately and forced them to appoint her CEO. Bucho and I backed her up. Jack’s uncle has a lot of influence around town and he dropped a threat or two in the right ears. They’re about half convinced I staged this whole thing so I could take it over. Since we—” Here he tilted his head at Knox. “—helped take it over last year, and I make my living restructuring or dismantling companies—” Oh. She didn’t know that. “—it’s not an unreasonable assumption. One word from Jack’s uncle and they’ll say and do what Melinda tells them to.”

Knox looked at her for a few seconds speculatively, then said, “I’m curious,” he began slowly, looking at Lydia. She got a bad feeling about this. “What’s your stake in this? You don’t have to do any of this. You’re on camera, but you were clearly pulling him back. Yes, they can see you dragged him off the platform, but they can’t identify you. You didn’t get the job at Juilliard. You don’t have a hotel bill to settle early to leave. You’ve got your own transportation, so you don’t have to worry about buying a ticket. You’ve got the cash to get you home, and we can bring your stuff home with us.”

Lydia looked away.

No jokes now. You got him away from the cops so he can clean up his own mess. You don’t owe him anything. He doesn’t love you and I thought you were over sleeping with men who don’t love you. You were doing so well! Why him?

“First,” she began slowly, “because I was holding onto Jack, I almost got pulled into the train too. That is terrifying, so it’s not just about him. Neither one of us slept last night. I couldn’t stop crying and he needed someone to hold onto, just two survivors trying to get through the night. So for better or worse, we’re bonded in a way I wouldn’t wish on anybody. A way I don’t want to be bonded because whatever could have been there isn’t there anymore and won’t be there without being tarnished by this.”

Knox nodded.

“Second, and I know Victoria wouldn’t have told you this, but I—” How much to say, how much to say. If she said too much, she’d be here all day telling them the story of her life, which they wouldn’t believe. Nobody did. “My dad,” she finally said, “was pulled over for a broken taillight. He smarted off. He was, um— A … minority. I guess you could say. There were four cops. They raped and killed him right there.”

Sebastian’s and Knox’s jaws dropped.

“So my only concern right then was what the NYPD would do to Jack in that time, or how long they’d make him wait until he could call a lawyer. They’d have him confessing to assassinating JFK because he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut.” Sebastian snorted. The corner of Knox’s mouth turned up. “The children were very conscious of what he looked like, then I clued in. If he’d been dressed well or I’d known all those eavesdroppers understood he wasn’t just some random thug, it might have made a difference.”

“I wondered,” Knox murmured. “That logic only comes from people with experience. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. Third, I need to deal with what I saw, to have closure that everybody, including that woman’s family, knows Jack didn’t kill her. I want it to happen while the media’s attention is already on him, not months down the road when the media won’t be interested and when people hear ‘Blackwood,’ they’ll only think of that murder he committed and never got convicted for. Maybe he bought his way out or knew somebody.”

Sebastian and Knox traded a sober glance.

She took a deep breath. “I want this cleaned up before I leave so I can go home and back to my nice little life, and know all the I’s are dotted and all the T’s are crossed. That the whole thing’s been wrapped up, there are no little details left, that nothing’s going to come back on me, that I won’t be looking over my shoulder.”

“That’s not all,” Knox said.

Lydia was surprised he could see that.

Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve, Buttercup. People will snatch it, take a bite out of it, and slap it in your hand dripping blood, then laugh in your face.

“I want to know Jack got his life back because then I can go home and forget he exists.”

---

13: THE POPPY FIELD

JACK HAD NEVER been so bored in his life. He couldn’t go out because his face was fucking everywhere and very few people knew Simon had visitors who weren’t her usual socioeconomic class of patients. But he also couldn’t sort out his brain and he wasn’t really awake. Time was distorting. He didn’t know what day it was. Space was distorting. He didn’t know where he was. The apartment he was in made him hallucinate, walls opening and closing the way they were, but the only thing he could smell was the slight whiff of bleach and the only thing he could really hear was the continuous hum and thrum of a washer and dryer.

The moment he stumbled against Brenda and saw her fall into the oncoming train was engraved on his neurons and he lay in the bunkbed in a tight but well-ventilated closet, in the dark, pressing his palms against his eyeballs trying to get rid of it.

The guilt.

Could he have done something, anything to keep her from falling? Surely there was something …

He had practically fallen off the motorcycle when they’d arrived yesterday, his legs unable to hold him up from the shock, the run, the ride on that fucking motorcycle that, that, that woman made him ride. He hated her. The exam room door had been partially open when he tripped through the front door, and he could see Simon in there working on someone. There was blood on her apron. He nearly passed out again.

Blood.

Shouldn’t there have been blood?

No blood.

Just thump.

Human thump.

That was all. Thump.

That was meant to be him. Thump.

Would’ve been Daisy, too. ThumpThump.

He’d collapsed flat on the floor and waited for Simon to finish with her current patient.

She’d ordered him to strip down and hand over his clothes, ordered him into the shower, ordered him to dress in scrubs, ordered him to drink lots of water and take some pills, ordered him to eat, ordered him to brush his teeth, comb his hair, and lie on the couch.

“No, there is nothing you could’ve done to catch her or keep yourself from falling into her. You almost hit the train head-first yourself and you’re lucky you still have your face,” Simon kept saying, as if she could scrub his guilt and doubt from his mind. He didn’t remember asking the question. He just remembered hearing the answer.

She made him do stuff all day long, but he’d be damned if he could remember any of it. He did whatever she told him to do because he couldn’t think for himself.

Thump.

His first independent thought had occurred when, around midnight, Daisy had barged into bed with him—a twin bed!—which made him mad. He slept alone. In a big bed. So he couldn’t be disturbed. One just didn’t invade Jack’s sleeping space. He needed his sleep, dammit! The two of them had argued; he didn’t remember any of it.

He did remember holding her while she sobbed, petting her hair, rubbing her cotton-covered back, pressing kisses into her temple, whispering shhhh a lot, and kept holding onto her after she’d dozed off.

He really really didn’t like sleeping with a woman, and, much as he wanted to get Daisy in bed, this was not how he wanted her. He liked them in and out. He rolled his eyes at himself. There was a reason he didn’t make jokes; it was because he wasn’t funny. He said crass things that were funny to him, but so crass they were uncomfortable to everyone else. If they got it. He did it on purpose to distance them so he could get his point across in as few words as possible. He had important shit to get done.

But she laughed at things other people found gross, mean, or so blatantly crude people weren’t sure he meant to say whatever it was he said.

Clits and Microdicks.

Ramona, Paula, and Val would’ve faked a laugh, looked at him vacantly, or ignored him.

Daisy not only thought it was funny, she had quick comebacks that were just as crass but sounded better because they were coming from an adorable little piano teacher.

That’s one way to a girl’s vagina.

She made it sound so cute.

Furthermore, she’d been so fucking thrilled to meet him, and no, he wasn’t buying that the reason was he couldn’t see that bullshit thing everybody said she did. “Idiopathic physiological anomaly” his ass. But there must be something to it because nobody was thrilled to meet Jack. And it wasn’t about his money, because women who approached him were cold and calculating. He was okay with that.

He loved knowing a woman was thrilled to meet him. Him, not his bank account. And he knew that because she knew who he was, but hadn’t reacted to him at all until he got rude. That was when she started to sparkle. And then she’d listened to him talk about his classes. Really listened. And then she’d watched him solve a formula he’d been working on for years. Suddenly he could do it because she was there like some kind of mathematical muse?

What was wrong with this woman? She thought he was smart and interesting. He was smart, but women didn’t care enough to pay attention. Interesting? Only to old mathematicians, stodgy economists, and hungry traders. And forget about funny. Clearly, she was mentally ill if she thought Jack was funny. But of course she was mentally ill. She’d driven that fucking motorcycle twelve hundred miles.

Yes, he had managed to piss her off several times, but it was always when he was making an effort not to. But here she was, having pulled him out of death, out of jail, out of his life, and into this bizarre reality where he landed in a twin bed with her, snuggling her, comforting her while she sobbed in his chest and sputtered things about almost dying and then—

That, that, that woman left him to his boredom all day, daytime TV punctuated by moments of panic or scuffle when somebody stumbled in the door looking for the doc. At some point, he was only too willing to help Simon in the exam room because no matter how disgusting, it wasn’t boring.

Wednesday morning he awakened with his arm in the curve of Daisy’s waist, his hand over her breast, her hard nipple in his palm. At some point during the second night, she’d gotten back from wherever she went, after having abandoned him to boredom, and climbed into bed, her curvy little ass tucked in his groin, her hands in that prayer pose under her face like adorable children in movies. Her hair was tickling his nose and a strand or two got caught in his mouth.

Her breathing changed a little, got deeper. Her chest expanded. She yawned. Smacked her lips together several times. Tightened her body in a big cat stretch.

“Aren’t you precious, sleeping with your hands under your cheek all sweet like an angel.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to put my arms, jerkwad,” she retorted irritably.

“What time is it?”

She leaned over the bed to look at the small clock. “Six.”

“I should be at work right now.”

She sighed.

He smoothed her hair off her neck and kissed her under her ear.

He could’ve sworn she purred.

“I don’t do morning sex,” she said sleepily, then yawned again. “Put your thing away.”

He was affronted. “What’s wrong with morning sex?”

“First, my bladder is bursting. Second, I just don’t get turned on in the morning. It’s not personal. I can’t even get myself off.”

“When do you get turned on?” he asked snidely.

“Three o’clock in the afternoon,” she said promptly.

“Shit, Daisy, do you come with an instruction manual?”

“Yes. Rule number one: Don’t call me Daisy.”

“What’s wrong with daisies? Daisies are cute. Adorably cute. Nobody ever named a blowup doll ‘Daisy.’”

“I know! It’s so innocent. Which I am not. ‘Lydia’ means business. Almost literally.”

“You seem innocent. You look innocent. I mean, I know you’re a drama queen, but there is nothing you can do—not even bullfighter outfits or full leathers—to make yourself look like a femme fatale to anybody else.”

“Oh, you know that phrase and can pronounce it correctly. I’m impressed.”

“Is that all I have to do to impress you? Throw around a couple of German words now and again?”

“You go on with your bad German-speaking self.”

“Not German.”

“No.” She shifted until she was on her back, which required him to cling to the wall and suffer her elbows and shoulders shoved into his chest and stomach. “Last year I went as a witch to the department Halloween party.”

“And I bet you were an adorably cute one.”

“Yes, dammit,” she grumbled.

“I’m curious about something.”

“Oh, God.”

“I noticed that for all you claim to hate ‘Daisy,’ you started answering to it immediately. Almost like it’s really your name.”

She growled.

“C’mon, cough it up. I smell a reason.”

She sighed. “When I was growing up, my dad and grandmother would call me whatever flower name sounded pretty that day. I will answer to a few flowers.”

“Awwww, how adorably cute. Which one did you get called most? No, let me guess. Daisy.”

“No. Buttercup.”

“But … ?”

“There is no ‘but.’”

“Bullshit.”

After a few seconds, she mumbled, “Daisy is my middle name.”

Jack started to laugh. “That is so rich.”

“Shut up.”

“Still doesn’t answer the question. I wouldn’t answer to my middle name if someone pulled it out of the air.”

“What is it?”

“You first. You know you want to tell me.”

“Ugh. Fine. My dad usually called me Buttercup. He called me Daisy when I was being a brat. Snotty teenager. Usually after I got home after a slumber party because I was tired and bitchy. To get me worked up so he could laugh at me as punishment for being bitchy. Now you.”

“Amarjeet.”

“Oh, you would too answer to it.”

He couldn’t stop laughing. “You can’t escape it, Daize. You are a daisy. I knew I was good, but not that good.”

“Good at what?”

“Sales,” he said. “I told you I can read people.”

“But why do you care?” she blurted. “Adorably cute is not your type.”

“It has been for the last few days,” he murmured and leaned down to kiss her. Then found her finger half up his nose.

“No. Gross. Not until you brush your teeth.”

“This is why I don’t like sleeping with people. Your breath isn’t minty fresh, either.”

“Mm, note to self: Get Altoids.”

“And condoms. I’ll go with you.”

“No you won’t, Mr. Fugitive. Unless you promise to drag Tommy Lee Jones behind you and then I’ll just use you for bait and ride off into the sunset with him.”

“Tommy Lee Jones?! He’s ancient.”

“I’m a fan of May-December romance.”

“You can bullshit everybody else, but not me so save your breath.”

“Okay, I’m soooo not a fan.”

“Is that bitterness I hear?” he cooed.

She huffed. “Yes. I was twenty-six, he was forty. That lasted about a year. It was a disaster.”

He waited.

“My grad advisor,” she muttered. “After I made associate professor.”

Jack started to laugh. “You are a walking soap opera.”

“You have no idea,” she grumbled. “At least he wasn’t a manslut like you.”

“Oh, no,” Jack drawled. “Only the guy who held your professional future in his hands.”

“Nope,” she said immediately. “I’m a better pianist than he is. Always will be. And a theorist. He doesn’t have stage fright, though, so it’s easy to disguise. I was disillusioned when I figured out he’d topped out his skill and was running on charisma fumes, but I broke up with him when I figured out he told me he loved me to draft on my skill and talent.”

Jack lay there for a few seconds, then said, “So finding out your mentor has clay feet then lied about being in love with you to get in your pants and piano is better than having a good time with a man who is your professional and intellectual equal who has been completely upfront about who he is and what he wants?”

She didn’t answer, but her breathing got faster and shorter.

“Mmm hm. ‘Manslut,’” he mused. “Interesting word. I’m all about equality, you know. You might even call me a feminist.”

Daisy snorted.

“Why are you differentiating ‘manslut’ from ‘slut’? ‘Slut’ is the pejorative because it refers to a woman. ‘Manslut’ is a descriptor, not a pejorative, making it automatically less bad because either men have more power or men just can’t be insulted or both. Bastard. Asshole. Whatever. Bitch—said to a woman, mind you, not to a man—might get me slapped and-or sued. Cunt definitely will. There is no word for a man that’s as bad as ‘slut’ or ‘bitch,’ to say nothing of ‘cunt.’ Men emasculate each other by referring to them as women. Listen up, ladies. How’s it going, girls? Don’t be such a pussy. Bitch. Cunt.”

“Do you?” she asked tightly. “Feel emasculated?”

“Shit, no,” he scoffed. “You know what it says when somebody calls me a pussy? It says either they’re insecure and they’re trying to sharpen their alpha on me or it means they’re pissed that I refuse to value the same things they value. But ‘slut’? No man on Earth feels emasculated to be called a ‘slut,’ and ‘manslut’ isn’t even that strong. Tell me you think ‘manslut’ is equivalent to ‘slut.’”

Nothing.

“You can’t. I do not date stupid women. They aren’t as well educated as you are, but they are far from stupid. And,” he continued archly after a few seconds of silence, “if you think I’m a misogynistic pig, you might be right if you think the women I fuck are victims, stupid, or naïve. In which case, you assume the women aren’t equal. I would never call a woman a slut because I know they’re equal and they have the same motives and appetites men do, so you are the misogynist. I am hot and rich. I am not bragging. That is a fact of life. From their standpoint, I am the mark. It doesn’t matter how dark I am or even how good or bad in bed I am. I know exactly what they want and it’s not a love affair. In fact, I admire them for being as opportunistic as any man on Wall Street. And before you say, ‘They’re not sluts, they’re whores,’ listen. When you get right down to it, everybody is a whore. Everybody has to do something they may not like to get what they want. In my case, they get a hot guy and a good time. Fucking me is not a hardship.”

She was still silent for another few seconds during which he was patting himself on the back for outwitting her. Then she said, “I’d concede most of that, except that one of your exes just tried to kill you. Either you’re not paying attention or some of your women really do want a love affair or marriage, and just go away crying without letting you know how hurt they are.” She paused. “Tell me you haven’t broken up with a woman when she started saying things that sounded suspiciously like ‘wedding.’”

He scoffed. “You have to get married to get a divorce settlement.”

“That narrows the field, but how many of them didn’t take any of your expensive offerings or end-of-the-affair gifts? Flowers and chocolate get a pass.”

Oh. Hm. There were a few of those, and he’d never understood why any woman would refuse dresses and diamonds.

“And tell me you haven’t ever wanted a woman badly enough to say something from which she could legitimately infer that you were open to marriage and that she could possibly maybe be The One.”

“I have never done that.” So far as he could remember.

“Oh you have, too.”

He growled.

“If you think,” she said quietly, “I don’t know what a man will tell a woman to get her in bed, or what women are willing to believe in the hope of love, or, better yet, the love of a charismatic tomcat, a bad boy, to be The One who wins his heart and soul, you’re mistaken. Some of us just can’t resist you and some of you don’t even have to be handsome. My ex-parasite certainly isn’t. You all know that. That doesn’t make us victims or naïve.”

“Which leaves stupid,” he shot back, stung, not knowing why, because he knew women loved bad boys and he was one. He wasn’t playing at it. That was who he was.

“You did just hear the story I told you, right?”

“You wanted a love affair with an intelligent man you admired who would always be your professional superior, but what you got was an aging big fish panicking because his student, a woman fourteen years younger than he is, was superior to him in every way. So he did whatever he had to do to keep you dazzled. What about that makes you stupid?”

“Only everything,” she sneered. “I allowed myself to be dazzled. Flashy. Charismatic. Intelligent. Funny. I love guys like that, but the more time I spent with any one guy, the less intelligent he got. This one might have done that before I realized what was happening, but I’ll never know.”

“You do too know. Even if you hadn’t found all that out, you would’ve topped him eventually and then the stars in your eyes would have burned out. You aren’t one to tolerate a pussy for long. I’m shocked you put up with him for a year. Or else he was just that fantastic in bed.”

Again she was silent.

“Oh, he was, wasn’t he?”

She huffed. “He had to be. He was hung like a toddler.”

Jack thought that was hilarious. “But I am not, which you know. So that means I have all the qualifications you’re looking for, I’m not interested in riding your talent, nor am I ever going to compete with you, and you know there is no possibility that my very high IQ is going to tank with continued interaction.”

“You have a point. A stupidly needy college professor and a culturally illiterate college professor who depends on his dick to do all the heavy lifting.”

“I don’t know whether you just insulted me or not.”

“I don’t either.”

He hated her. Haaaaated her. But he chuckled and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Well, sorry to pop your Little Piano on the Prairie bubble, but my women are too savvy to think I can be domesticated.”

“‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’”

“Oh! Shakespeare!”

“No.”

The hell? Of course it was Shakespeare. Everybody knew that. “No?”

“No. Explain Val.”

“She broke up with me. Explain that.”

“She quit before she got fired. Jack, I’m serious. She tried to kill you, almost killed me, and did kill Brenda.”

Brenda.

Thump.

He took a deep, shuddering breath.

“But that wasn’t your fault,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, okay,” he snapped. “Tell the movie operator in my head to stop replaying that.”

He felt her hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I was there, Jack. I heard and saw the whole thing. It wasn’t your fault. I can say that. But I also know that no matter how many times I say ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ you won’t believe me.”

His breathing got a little more ragged, with her soft palm against his face, feeling her sympathy. He turned his head and pressed a kiss there. “Thanks for trying,” he muttered. “If you really want to make me feel better, you can take your clothes off and climb on top of me.”

“It’s not three p.m. yet. My body is very stubborn about timing.”

He couldn’t get it up right now if he tried, with that movie in his head and her sympathy seeping through his cheek. “Another physiological anomaly?”

“No, that’s a common thing about women, but you wouldn’t know that, would you?”

“Was that a good-natured jab or a catty one?”

“Meee. Ow.”

He smiled into the darkness, stroking her ribs through the cotton scrubs, cupping her breast, caressing her belly.

She sighed and caressed the back of his hand with a finger.

“You gonna be around at three?” he asked huskily.

She hesitated, but all he had to do was talk to her about derivatives and he’d have her wet. Her reaction to that also thrilled him to death.

“You got a motorcycle because you wanted one,” he whispered in her ear. “Why do you need an excuse to fuck a guy who makes you laugh?”

“Oh, honestly. Having chrome between my legs is entirely different from having a man there. And in case you’re wondering, riding a motorcycle is far from orgasm-inducing. It’s hot and itchy. I ride with an ice pack between my legs.”

“Oh,” he said, surprised.

“Besides, I need to think about this. Things have changed and what’s between us here, now, is different from what was there at lunch. You know, before you shot your mouth off about your girlfriends.”

He grimaced. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I’m not used to nice girls.”

“We’re both still in shock. We have to wait it out, and—” She stopped. “I’m glad I didn’t get that job because right now, I just want to go home and forget this ever happened.”

Jack’s throat tightened immediately. She could do that. “Would you take me with you?”

“No,” she said immediately. “I don’t want you in my spaces.”

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. “I was joking.”

“I know.”

She sounded sad and Jack didn’t know what to say, then realized he was manufacturing this conversation to keep the movie from replaying in his head.

“Tell me about Val,” she said. Commanded, actually.

He shifted onto his back, too. She moved. A little. There was a rail there, as if they were children who couldn’t be trusted not to roll out of bed in their sleep. No, they were adults who couldn’t fit in the fucking bed together. Of course they needed a rail.

“Valentina Ghidella,” he sighed. “September to November 1990.”

“That was six years ago. I’m going to assume she wanted a love affair or marriage.”

“Daize, honestly, I don’t know. She wasn’t making noises about permanence of any kind, and she wouldn’t use my credit card. No, she didn’t take the gifts I bought her.”

“Where did she live?”

He snorted. “You plan on hunting her down?”

“I have to get the information to your new lawyer.”

“Huh?”

“Sebastian’s cousin Knox, which is why your lawyer wasn’t on TV by the evening news.”

“Thank God,” he breathed. “Is that where you went yesterday?”

“Met up with Sebastian and he tagged along, yes. Your right hand is now the big kahuna, so her daddy’s biz got put on hold and Bucho’s now more than a floating exec. The board is going to back you whether they want to or not, under threat of another coup by her, Sebastian, Knox, and your uncle … ?”

“Yep. Real estate. He’s one of my major shareholders, owns my building, has a lot of pull in and out of New York, and generally finds me the most trustworthy person he’s ever met. I wouldn’t have been able to pull that coup off without him. I also introduced him to my aunt, and he’s eternally grateful. My crew and Sebastian’s intimidate the board. My uncle terrifies them.”

“You know,” she mused, “for a guy who doesn’t have friends, you sure have a lot of them.”

“No,” he drawled, “I have allies. That’s totally different.”

“If you say so,” she said vaguely. “Anyway. I have cash and an agenda. Knox doesn’t know where we are. He is of the opinion we did the logical thing at that moment, particularly with my experience in the mix, and will not offer to turn you over. But since we are in hiding, he wants us to stay out of the way while he’s working because he doesn’t trust you to keep your mouth shut. Part of that is he needs to have everything you can remember about the chick who pushed you.”

Jack felt a glimmer of hope. He didn’t kid himself; none of those people were his friends. They were allies with whom he shared a great mutual respect. He would go to bat for Melinda and those guys because they worked clean. Sebastian had a few questionable habits and Knox had his own shadows, but Knox considered Jack’s sex life not only unethical but immoral. He wasn’t shy about saying it and Jack didn’t want to hear it from his dad, much less an outsider almost ten years younger than Jack. Jack tolerated it because he knew he’d never have to choose between his allies and the ethical thing to do. Sebastian tolerated his habits because he wasn’t exposed to a regular manifestation of them, and even then he had his limits.

Jack’s uncle was the only person in his family who understood him and his place in the world and respected him for it. None of the rest of them knew what he did nor were they interested. If it didn’t involve a honey-do list, a tennis racket or a catcher’s mitt, or his sex life, it was irrelevant. And God knew, his parents had plenty to say about his sex life—none of it good—and they said it quite often.

He’d brought one of his women to a family picnic.

Once.

He could imagine what his dad would say about this predicament: Told you so.

“Val had an apartment in Queens, close to LaGuardia,” Jack said finally. Wearily.

“Do you remember the address?”

“No, but get me a map while you’re out and I can find it.”

“Anything else?”

“She seemed normal. No relationship drama. Good sex. Good cocktail party date.” He paused. Laughed. “Uncultured swine.”

That made her laugh too. It mattered to him that she laughed at things he found ridiculous or stupid or funny.

“Honestly, Daize, if I could remember anything weird about her, I’d tell you.”

She was silent for a few seconds. “Jack, I hate how fast you go through women. How many there are. That’s one reason I got so mad every time you reminded me or one showed up. I don’t want to be one of them.”

He closed his eyes with a groan and let his body sink back into the bed, his head into the pillow. “I don’t notch my bedpost,” he grumbled, resenting her inability or refusal to see she was different.

“You don’t keep track of how many peanuts you eat at a bar, either, do you?”

He barked a laugh. “Um … ”

“God, I’m an idiot,” she moaned, rubbing her hands on her face.

“Your tone of voice suggests that even though you don’t like me, don’t like the way I treat women, don’t respect my lack of culture or anything else about me, and don’t find me admirable in any way whatsoever, you’re still going to fuck me.”

“You teach upper-level math. I can respect that. A little.”

“Oh, speaking of that. I never did get to finish my explanation of the inflation-proof bond. You ran out on me.”

“Mmm, okay. Tell me again.”

He was surprised she called his bluff, but maybe she really did just want to go back to sleep. So … he did. And after about ten minutes, she stopped him and asked a pertinent question. He explained. “Go on,” she said. He did, a little more slowly, but now it was because he was dazed. She was listening to him. Again. He never talked about this stuff because most people weren’t interested and the ones who were just wanted to argue about it. Then she asked him to backtrack and explain a concept. He did. “Go on,” she said when he was finished with that. When he concluded his lecture, she asked, “Well, if it works, how come you’re the only one who does it?”

“Favors,” he replied. “Politics. Most people have to balance their relationships with their fiduciary responsibilities, and some people’s people don’t like my method, so loyalties get divided and loyalty makes you vulnerable to bad judgment and corruption. I don’t owe anybody any favors and I have a reputation for making lots of money very quickly, which, in my case—because I am special—” She laughed. “—gives me a lot more freedom than they have. I don’t have any relationships to violate, and I choose my allies very wisely. Background checks, the works. And if they violated my ethics anyway, I wouldn’t have any problem turning on them.”

“Is that why you choose the women you do?” she asked softly. “Because you won’t have to choose between a woman and something else you value?”

“No. I’m a simple guy. I like meaningless sex, McDonald’s, and whatever’s on the radio right now. Note the ‘meaningless sex’ part.”

“Which means either you think having sex with me will be meaningless, which is why I won’t have sex with you, or you won’t be having sex with me because it’ll mean something to you. Which begs the question: Why did you keep trying?”

Because you’re different!

He felt like he’d been ambushed. No, he had been ambushed. “I hate you,” he muttered, fondling her bruised knuckles, hearing her chuckles. “Hate.”

“You are so easy,” she drawled as she slid out of bed and slowly eased the door open, then disappeared into the quiet apartment.

He lay there and stared up into the blackness. I hate you, something any of his girlfriends would have tittered at nervously, given him the side-eye, or walked away. Daisy thought it was funny. Why, he didn’t know. Nothing he said deliberately to insult or shock her fazed her. Nothing he said when trying to display a nonexistent decency and humanity made her happy.

He slid off the bed and went out into the blinding light, which wasn’t that blinding since it was six a.m. and there was only one small window, but he’d just been in a pitch black room for hours upon hours. The children were asleep on the couch, one head at each end. Simon— Well, he didn’t know where Simon’s bedroom was. He did know where the bathroom was, and there she was, brushing her teeth in front of the mirror. She smirked when she saw him behind her, and he snarled at her.

“Hate,” he hissed right before he wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed a kiss into her shoulder.

“If it doesn’t involve a toilet,” came Simon’s voice from the tiny hallway, “do your post-coital bonding somewhere else.”

“No coitus,” Daisy trilled.

“Yet,” Jack drawled.

“Your pitching woo, then. One bathroom, seven people.”

Jack met Daisy’s gaze in the mirror, then they both turned. “Seven?”

“One gunshot wound,” she said wearily, dragging into the bathroom with them. “One woman needing a place to hide from her man.”

“Have you not been to bed?” Daisy demanded.

“No. Get out.”

They did, but instead of picking up where they left off, Daisy headed into the kitchen and started to cook. “Jack,” she said over her shoulder, “go get instructions about the patient and then put Simon to bed. The last thing she needs is two healthy adults lazing around while she works her butt off.”

Jack rolled his eyes and turned around to do what she told him to do because no matter how much he sparred with her, he couldn’t get that fucking movie out of his head.

Thump.

---

14: WITCHES CAN BE RIGHT

LYDIA COOKED BREAKFAST for the kid with a gunshot wound in his thigh; the woman who was hiding out in terror of a man before her sister picked her up; Jesus and Mary; and Manuelito and Paco, whom she wasn’t too surprised to see. She and Jack would eat after all but the patient had left. Simon was still sleeping.

Jack was bouncing off the walls because he had nothing to do, nowhere he could go, and no one on the outside he could talk to. He started pacing and shoving his hands through his hair, mumbling and grumbling, occasionally ranting especially after Knox had appeared all over the morning news and talk shows, getting far more coverage than any other lawyer in that situation would’ve.

Because he was young and hot.

“That is a fine specimen of a man,” Simon said matter-of-factly from across the room on a replay around noon.

“You should see him in person,” Lydia offered over her shoulder. “Oh—My—God. And I don’t even like blonds.”

“What the fuck?!” Jack demanded of her.

She raised her eyebrow. “Who propositioned me before he broke up with his current girlfriend?”

“Hilliard’s a fucking prude.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Hot and respectful.”

Jack snarled at her. “He’s into cougars.”

“How old is he? Thirty?”

“Not quite.”

Lydia looked at Simon. “I’ve got at least five years on him.”

“Fifteen here. He’s fair game and I do like blonds.”

“I saw him first, so I get dibs.”

“Oh, you do not!” Jack snapped.

She and Simon both snickered at him.

“AAAUUUUGHHH!”

“Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Knox Hilliard. I have been retained by Blackwood Securities to represent Jack Blackwood regarding the incident at the Wall Street station two days ago. As you can see from the security tapes, it’s clear that Jack fell and had some forward momentum, which leads us to believe he was deliberately shoved, making him the intended victim. Ms Koskella was an innocent bystander. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Ms Koskella and her loved ones and friends.”

Do you have evidence he was pushed?

“No. The police department has been talking to witnesses as they can. It is their job to look at the evidence they have to determine whether they can make a case as to whether the fall was staged. I don’t think they can.”

He and the victim had a heated argument that several witnesses have confirmed. If it was an accident, and especially if he was the intended victim, why did he run?

“Regarding the argument, the reason for the animosity between Jack and Ms Koskella is well documented. Jack’s actions in Ms Koskella’s case six years ago were aboveboard and per strict protocol through the justice system. He’s known in corporate America as having spotless ethics, so any action beyond that would be completely out of character for him. Ms Koskella served her sentence and had resumed a normal life with gainful employment. Yes, she threatened to push him off the platform, which several witnesses have corroborated, but we’re only human and sometimes we let our passions get away with us. We have no reason to believe her threat was anything but pure frustration.

“As for why he ran, I can only speculate. As a prosecutor with my own jurisdiction, I am in a position to see how minorities are treated by law enforcement officers regardless of their status as suspects or victims. I am not in a position to comment on the NYPD’s arrest protocols or its reputation for the gentle handling of people who are clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, since Jack is a minority—”

“Fuck you, Hilliard!” Jack yelled at the TV, sick of his entire identity being reduced to his skin color. “I’m a fucking AMERICAN!”

“—and he wasn’t dressed in a manner that would suggest he was a normal commuter at rush hour in the financial district, he may have felt he wouldn’t get fair treatment at the scene. It is unfortunate that occasionally, fine, upstanding officers will be overzealous in their pursuit of justice, especially when minorities are involved.”

Simon snorted. Manny and Paco cackled.

“Minorities are, naturally, more sensitive to this possibility than non-minorities. In fact, it is usually at the forefront of their minds in any encounter with law enforcement. As the prosecutor in my home county, I can speak from a position of authority. It’s not speculation on my part.”

You’re from Missouri! Are you admitted in New York?

“I’m admitted in seventeen states, including New York.”

“Whoa,” Lydia said in awe.

“He has a photographic memory and reads at the speed of light,” Jack said absently.

“Even better,” Simon purred.

“Oh, yessssss.”

“CUT IT THE FUCK OUT!”

“I have, in fact, argued here, so I’m not unknown.”

Are you going to turn him in?

“As I don’t know where he is or how to find him, I can’t. I, like everyone else, will depend on the NYPD to find him and, hopefully, treat him as the victim he is instead of the criminal the media are trying to make him. At best, he fell, and a bystander was killed. At worst, he was the intended target and was pushed, and a bystander was killed. I have faith that the good men and women of the NYPD will give him the benefit of the doubt as they would any other victim of a horrendous crime.”

“Drop-dead gorgeous or not, that boy’s got no credibility,” Simon said.

“Why not?” Lydia asked, alarmed.

“He’s young, he’s from out of town, and he just dared the NYPD to find Jack and beat him down. They’ll do it, too. That act might play in Kansas City, but it doesn’t here.”

Lydia looked at Jack, who was too busy glaring at them both to look concerned.

Are you going to call for him to turn himself in?

“If he’s seeing this press conference, he will know what I would advise him to do.”

“Since you’re still here,” Simon said, “I suppose we know what he wants you to do. No credibility, but he skirts the edges nicely.”

Jack’s mouth flattened. “‘Skirt’ is not what I would call it.”

Lydia looked at him sharply. “You need to get over your precious obsessive ethics,” she sneered. “You might have a moral luxury nobody else has—especially your peers and colleagues—but if you expect to have someone to look after you in your old age or live that long, you are going to have to accept the fact that your experience has been unique and in no way universal. And now you don’t have that luxury, either.”

“Bravo,” Simon said matter-of-factly.

… have a tarnished reputation in your home county. Weren’t you investigated in the execution-style murder of a man the day after he was found not guilty on nineteen counts of homicide two years ago? A case you tried and lost?

“Oh, my God,” Simon breathed and moved closer to the TV.

Lydia had expected that question. One couldn’t live in the Kansas City metro area without knowing that rumor.

Jack grunted. “Like I said, skirting is not what I’d call it.”

Knox nodded matter-of-factly. “I was put on a month’s leave without pay while I was investigated. Then I was cleared. It’s really no more sensational than that, except I had a hard time paying my mortgage that month. Almost had to pick up a night shift at QuikTrip.”

Light laughter went around.

“But as you note, I am the prosecutor, so apparently the county that re-elected me in a landslide thinks I’m a fairly decent one. No more questions. You’ll have to wait for the rest of the story from Paul Harvey, ’cause that’s all I got.”

“Jack,” Simon drawled.

“Don’t know if he did it,” Jack gritted out. “Don’t wanna know.”

Lydia looked at him. “Friends,” she said quietly. “Relationships.”

Jack turned and stalked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

“He’s a lot more complicated than he seems,” Simon muttered as she flipped off the TV.

But Lydia was staring at the bathroom door. “He doesn’t want friends. They might turn out to be Brendas.”

“Everybody in this world’s a Brenda some way or another.”

“He doesn’t want to find that out.”

---

15: REFLECTION

IT WAS AFTER DINNER when Lydia got back to Simon’s place with toiletries and thrift-store clothes. Lots of them. Some for Jack, some for the kids, some for Simon, and some for herself. She was shocked when she walked in to see Jack in one of Simon’s old broken-down club chairs with Mary on one of the wide arms of the chair and Jesus on the other while he read to them.

His foot was thumping like a rabbit’s so his knee was bouncing. His voice was a little herky-jerky although he was trying to put some color into it. He kept running his hand through his hair. His jaw was grinding a little. He looked up when she came in and glared at her.

It was a meaningful glare, meaning, Get me out of this. Now.

She ignored him and went to find Simon, who was on her bed, doing a little light reading. Of medical journals. “Has he been out at all?”

“No, and he’s driving me crazy, but I’m not comfortable letting him go out.”

“I’ll get Manuelito and Paco to take him out and run some of that off.”

As soon as she got the teenagers to the door with a basketball, Jack was gone like a shot. Jesus and Mary were upset that he’d abandoned them, but were much happier when, after making them shower and brush their teeth, Lydia took up reading duties until they couldn’t hold their eyes open and she put them to bed on the couch.

It was one o’clock in the morning when Jack climbed into bed with her, damp, smelling like soap and chocolate, totally exhausted.

“I brought clothes for you, but you vamoosed,” she said lightly, helping him get settled and smiling at his moans and groans.

“Condoms?”

She sighed heavily. “Yes.”

“Not getting used tonight, though. Those kids beat my ass.”

“Well, you are twenty years older than they are.”

“I,” he returned haughtily, “still have more stamina. They rounded up all their friends and kept me in the game while they switched out. I wore them out, but I’m paying the price for it. What did you say to them when we brought Mary here? Besides turn on the guilt and look in their eyes, I mean.”

Lydia turned onto her side and propped her temple in her palm, putting her other hand on Jack’s cotton-covered chest because she had nowhere else to put it. “If they kept going the way they were, they’d be bottoming in a high-security prison, wearing pink satin panties and calling their top ‘honey’ and ‘baby’ and saying ‘yes, sweetie’ a lot, handing over their singles, and getting passed around like money to any dick who can pay for them. They’d never get to put their dicks in any woman ever again because their large intestines would be hanging out their butts like a tail, which is not sexy. That was the G-rated version.”

Jack burst out laughing.

“And if they thought they’d be able to top on the inside, they were delusional.”

He laughed until he groaned and put his hand to his head.

“Headache?”

“Caused by—” He started laughing again. “You’re hilarious.”

“I also told them that it’s the little things that make a difference, like … helping someone carry groceries to feed someone who’s helped them so much. Minding their own business. Hanging out with good kids from good families. And that’s when I turned on the guilt.”

“Made them look you in the eye.”

“Of course I did. I figured they’d rather play hours of pickup basketball with a glorified door-to-door salesman than do whatever stupid thing they had planned for the night. Then I told them to go to school tomorrow.”

“Is that your freshman pep talk?”

She laughed. “A variation. How’d you know?”

“I get one or two of ’em every once in a while. They didn’t get it as freshmen. Or sophomores. They’re struggling. I can see something’s there, but I can’t dig through the insecurity to get to it unless they’re ready for somebody to start digging.”

“Oh, that’s a nice way of putting it. I got one of those. Turned my life around.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Well, when my first advanced piano teacher told me I was in no way advanced and I needed to start at the bottom—”

He started. “As a college freshman? Didn’t you have to audition?”

“Not only that, but I got a full-ride scholarship! She wasn’t kind about it, either, so I was shocked. Devastated. My technique was all wrong. My classical music repertoire was almost nonexistent. I was hot stuff at home and then I got there and I was barely average. My classmates were so far ahead of me I couldn’t hope to catch up. What if I was never going to be that good? My roommate—Sebastian and Knox’s cousin Victoria—gave me the pep talk. Her minor was opera, but she sang jazz in a nightclub. She said they required two separate techniques, so between class and her gig, she just flipped a switch. My pop music technique was right, but since I didn’t have a frame of reference for classical technique, I should look at it like I was learning a new instrument, not like something I had to correct. All I had to do was put my back into it. I was back in advanced piano by my third semester. The problem is, I never really stopped thinking I was special, which was why I kept thinking I could be the one to tame the bad boy.”

“You are special.”

“In my world, yes, but it’s very tiny.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She ignored that. “The rest of the world is filled with you and you are heroin to me.”

He didn’t say anything, but he dragged his finger lightly over the back of her hand. “I don’t know anything about where you are in the music world,” he muttered. She was surprised he didn’t follow up on her confession. “I feel kind of bad about that, since you sort of understand my work.”

“Only from TV and what you just pick up along the way,” she said, then went silent because she was too busy feeling warmth and tenderness trickling through her. Then she sighed because she didn’t know if they’d have ever gotten to this without Val. “The thing is,” she mused, “lots of people understand what I play and that it’s difficult and that I am a virtuoso. People do come from China to study with me. But I just want to entertain people. Make them feel good. Pianists like me don’t play classical music to make people feel good and discerning audiences don’t drop three hundred dollars on a ticket for one pianist to feel good. They go to listen to music they like, yes, but to be able to say they saw that person. This pianist, brilliant. That pianist, a virtuoso. This soprano, perfection. That ballerina, divine. This sculptor— Well, it goes on.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, but she knew he was awake, because he was still caressing her hand. “So making people feel good means they’re not discerning?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. You go see Pearl Jam, right? You go to see them. If they screw up, no problem. The audience probably can’t even hear it. People are discerning about Pearl Jam and that genre, but they still love them. They’re there to rock out with Pearl Jam, not wallow in their mistakes. Pearl Jam has the power in that relationship. A concert pianist doesn’t have any power at all. The only thing I can control is my level of perfection, which triggers a Catch-22 for me. Used to be, mistakes were forgiven. Expected, even. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’ ‘Well, they can do it better than I can.’ Audiences don’t tolerate mistakes from a virtuoso anymore, especially a woman.”

“That’s interesting,” he drawled like she’d revealed some deep, dark secret. “But your logic falls apart when you throw lip syncing into the equation. I don’t go see anybody live if they don’t lip sync. I want to hear what’s on the radio, which is all the backing tracks they can’t do live. The big flashy shows with lasers and fireworks. Janet Jackson. She can’t dance like she does and sing radio-perfect for two hours. Not physically possible. That’s what I go for, the same music I hear on the radio with a flawless two-hour dance routine and a flashy show. So if discerning audiences won’t tolerate virtuosos making mistakes, it means they’re just like me. They’re used to hearing it on their state-of-the-art sound systems and they want what they hear at home. Live and with better acoustics.”

Lydia thought about that, half amazed Jack brought something to her experience she’d never considered. “Oh,” she said in a small voice. “I— Um, hm. I almost always perform with or behind the orchestra or stage show, which means it doesn’t matter if the audience is discerning or not. They won’t be judging me, individually. They’re only there to have a good time.”

“Then why do you wear such a flashy outfit when you’re auditioning or performing alone?”

She hesitated. “That’s … complicated.”

“Well, it would be a lot less complicated if your white shirt underneath that slit in your sleeve weren’t so distracting.”

Exactly. “You noticed?”

“Seven grand, right down the toilet.”

She puffed a laugh. “You wanted to know, too?”

“I didn’t until Ramona asked, because I wasn’t checking out your bling.”

Lydia grinned into the pitch black of their little hideaway. “You know she sabotaged me on purpose, don’t you?”

He growled. “She let me know when I broke up with her. I was so pissed. How did you know?”

“I didn’t think anything of how you were looking at me because men do that after looking in my eyes. I noticed her trying to figure out why these two gorgeous guys—one she’s sleeping with and one she wants to be—are all about an ordinary-looking woman. She can’t play a game whose rules she doesn’t know, so she went scorched Earth. I lost the round, but I won the game.”

He snorted. “And your prize is a twin bed in a closet in Spanish Harlem with a guy who may or may not be wanted for murder and almost got murdered himself.”

“You’re right,” she drawled. “I could do better on the midway at a carnival.”

“What’s your game, honey?” he cooed.

“Skeeball.”

He laughed. “You kill me.”

“Too soon.”

“Ah, right. Have you ever played a full concert hall by yourself?”

“Yes.” It was an awful memory. “Once. I puked for days before. I did another, with a full orchestra behind me. That wasn’t quite as bad, and the conductor was very understanding.” She chuckled. “I kind of want to puke now, just remembering it. I’m fine in the pit, though, playing for a ballet or an opera. I’m featured on the playbill, but I’m not the main attraction.”

“Barbra Streisand. Carly Simon. Rod Stewart. Stage fright. Crippling.”

Her brow wrinkled. “How do you know?”

“I did some research. You can’t be the only high-level musician with stage fright. I was going to beg for dinner again and talk to you about it, but then we ended up on the same platform and almost murdered together. It slipped my mind.”

She gaped. “You researched that? For me?”

“Yep.”

And for no reason she could discern, she dipped her head and kissed him.

“Mmm, now that’s what I like to come home to,” he whispered against her mouth.

“Stop talking.”

He chuckled against her mouth but went with the kiss, soft, slow, deep, light. He caressed her curls while they kissed, there in the dark, unable to do anything but taste and feel and smell and hear.

“Don’t start something I can’t finish,” he whispered when she pulled away to catch her breath. “I’m beat.”

She smiled. “That’s okay. I’m tired too.”

He yawned. “Can’t remember the last time I saw two a.m.”

“I’m a night owl. I only know five-thirty from the back side.”

“Naturally.”

“Which reminds me: In the interest of full disclosure, though I have never stolen anything from anyone, I am adept at cooking books and fudging tax returns and following other shady financial rabbit trails you wouldn’t approve of.”

He laughed harshly and she felt him run his hand down his face. “Of course you are. This just couldn’t be easy, could it?”

She sighed. “Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something.”

“The universe can go fuck itself.”

---

16: HEGEL OF WALL STREET

HE WAS NUZZLING the back of her neck, but it seemed unintentional, as if he were asleep and she was his teddy bear. Somehow they’d changed positions without his falling out of bed, and now she was facing the wall and he was spooned behind her. He hummed a little against her skin and still she couldn’t tell if he was asleep or not. Everybody slept differently and she had very rarely slept with any man.

“Jack?” she whispered.

“You smell good,” he breathed in her ear.

Yeah, he looked like Tony, or at least, the picture of him she’d seen every day of her childhood. She wasn’t averse to Tony. She was just sick of looking at him and listening to Lola go on and on about how he was going to walk through the front door and take her away somewhere, like Rico never existed. Tony story number four hundred and sixty-two.

She breathed a soft laugh.

“You laughing at me?” he asked softly before licking her earlobe.

“This isn’t a good idea.” She wanted it to be. God knew, she wanted it to be.

“Why not?”

“Last week, I didn’t want to be one of many. This week, I don’t want battlefield survivor bonding sex.”

He slid his hand down her body, caressing her over and back again, her ribs, her belly, her hips, down until he was between her legs, tickling the inside of her thigh just under the hem of her shorts, his thumb brushing her just right.

She sighed and closed her eyes, exhaling with pleasure when his fingers slid up her shorts, past her panties, and caressed her right there in the folds, tauntingly, teasingly.

“This was already on tap, so it’s not survivor comfort. We were standing there in the middle of rush hour setting an hour-by-hour agenda for a weekend in bed.”

She puffed a small laugh. “Fine. You got me.”

“I didn’t expect to get you in a twin bunkbed.”

She wanted to be close, yes. Not this close.

“You’re wet.”

She’d been wet since she’d started kissing him and went to sleep wet.

“And I’m hard.”

Yes, she knew. All too well.

He moved a little backward and she missed the warmth of his body even with only an inch of space between them. But she knew what he wanted her to do. She wanted to, too. So she rolled with him a little, scooted until she was lying on her back and Jack was on his side.

He wasted no time kissing her, unbuttoning her shorts, tucking his hand down her pants, then sweeping up again, under her tank, to her bra, which he popped without hesitation. She moaned into his mouth when he cupped one breast, pulled his thumb teasingly over her hard nipple.

His tongue was all smooth chocolatey goodness. “Mmmm,” she breathed low in her throat, from her chest, raising her hand to lay along his jaw and caress his cheek with her thumb.

“You gonna teach me how to play your keys?”

“No talking,” she whispered back.

She didn’t hear his chuckle. She felt it.

“Is it because I can’t see your magic trick?”

“Among other things,” she murmured absently around his lips and tongue. “Shut up.”

“Too bad the bed’s too small for me to show off my eating-outing skills.”

“Stop talking.”

“I like talking to you,” he countered. “We like talking, remember? We can do that. We’re smart. The derivatives turned you on. They turn me on, too.”

She broke the kiss and pulled away a little. “Do you want to talk or make love? Because I can’t do both.”

His roving hand stilled. “You can’t?”

“No.”

“Huh. That’s interesting. I’ve never been with a woman who didn’t talk during sex.”

Now she was irritated. “Maybe they just talked because you wanted them to.”

He began caressing her belly again, stroking up to her breasts again. “Nah,” he muttered, kissing her again. “Women just like to talk.”

“Well, I don’t,” she snapped against his mouth. “I am officially not in the mood anymore, so now we can chat.”

“You’re serious?!” he demanded.

“Check and see,” she retorted.

He did, tucking his hand down her panties again. Where he had met no resistance before, now he did.

“Ouch. Be careful.”

“Aw, shit,” he spat and rolled away to flop on the bed beside her. “Daisy—”

“Shut up,” she snapped. “This is the second time you have talked me dry.”

“Second?!”

“The day we found the kids? In the cab? We were kissing? You asked me to go home with you? Right then? I said yes? I told you to stop talking? Twice? But you kept talking?”

“Wait a minute. You mean you weren’t pissed about what I said about being done with Ramona et al?”

“Both. I was ready and more than willing to hit the sheets, but you just couldn’t keep your fat trap shut after I told you to stop talking. The ‘I was done with them’ was a cooler full of ice water getting dumped on me. Why can’t you just do what I tell you to do?”

“I don’t follow anybody’s orders,” he hit back.

“Right, because you’re unique and special. You’re not going to get laid, but—” She dropped her hand on his denim-covered crotch and rubbed his hard-on, making him sigh. “—your pride and ethics are still intact! So it’s all good.”

“God, you can be such a bitch.”

That she wouldn’t tolerate, and she sat up to crawl over him to the little ladder.

“What the hell—?”

Hurt, she snarled, “Your mouth is going to get you killed one of these days. Hopefully tomorrow. Ramona and Paula and Val might put up with your bullshit, but I’m not. Oh, wait. No, Val is not going to put up with your bullshit. She’s going to murder you for your bullshit.” She dropped to the floor and patted it, looking for her shoes.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“Home,” she snapped, plopping on the meager spot of floor and started to struggle with the knot in her shoestring.

“Home? To Kansas?”

“That is where my home is, yes.”

“And leave me here?”

She barked a laugh. “Why, yes. Because it’s you—you—you and how pure you are if it involves money. But you’re a complete sociopath when it involves women—”

“Sociopath?! What the fuck?!”

“Get yourself out of your own mess, Mr. Big Swinging Dick. The mess you made because you swung your dick too many places.”

“And you think you can get out of the city now?” he demanded. The bed swayed as he shifted and hung over the rail.

She rolled her eyes, but gnashed her teeth at the knot that would not come undone. The one in her shoestring. And soul. “Do you honestly think I can’t get off this provincial little island without being caught? Not only don’t they know what I look like except for my adorably cute butt, they don’t know what I’m driving. I have my purse, my toothbrush, and a couple of changes of clothes in my saddlebags. I can leave now and Sebastian will bring my stuff home.”

“I can see how a Harley with Kansas tags would be inconspicuous. What the fuck is up your ass? Beside the fact that I killed your hard-on?”

“Normally, I take ‘bitch’ as a compliment, especially when we’re on equal ground, but I’m not going to tolerate it from a bottom who can’t be bothered to think up something more à propos—”

“Bottom?!” he nearly bellowed.

“—like, ‘Anything you say, Dr. Charbonneau. Ma’am.’”

She could hear his teeth gnashing.

“Further disclosure, and only to make my point: Not only am I adept at cooking books and falsifying my tax returns, I also helped my dad build and run a very illegal underground operation. Family business. I will give you a hint: The only thing it did not involve was drugs. I made the IRS my bitch before I could vote.”

Silence.

“The financial equivalent of what you do to women would be selling shares in what you know is a Ponzi scheme.”

“That is not true,” he hissed.

“That requires a certain level of naïveté and-or stupidity, right? Men so vulnerable or desperate to believe in the promise of hitting the lottery. You get your commission. They lose their retirement and take their families with them to sleep under a bridge and eat cat food.”

“I would never do that.” His voice thrummed with rage, but she knew he’d think about it for a while.

“Whatever you feel about what Brenda did? Put my sins up against yours, and I’ve been playing T-ball. You’re in the major leagues, using women like a paper towel to wipe your dick off.”

“Oh, you know what? Fuck Sebastian!”

“I would,” she said airily, “but he’s not my type. He’s a nice guy.”

Jack hissed at her.

“And he wasn’t going to stand by and let you fuck over a friend without warning her what she was getting into. So here I am, finding out he wasn’t exaggerating what a shit you are. God, I can’t believe I was going to— I didn’t know I was that desperate, that I’d have sex with you like one of your cheap whores.”

Finally he spoke. Softly. “Is that what you think?”

“That your women are cheap whores? Yes.”

“No, that I think you’re like Ramona or Paula or Val.”

“Well, I haven’t given you much reason to think I’m not, now have I?”

“I never thought of you in that way, from the moment I first saw you. You’re not an opportunistic viper, for one. You’re a nice girl.” He said that as if he had always wanted one of those. “Smart. Funny. Piano shopping, for God’s sake. Who does this?”

“Virtuosos, jerkwad.”

“Yeah, that’s another thing.”

“What do you care? You hate what I play.”

“So what? I like that you do it. Also, I spend a lot of money on my girlfriends, so everything being equal, they’re not cheap. I would’ve bought your piano for you.”

“There is no amount of money that would make them not-cheap and I would never take a gift from a guy I’d had sex with.”

More silence.

“What, now you’re speechless?”

She felt his fingers brushing her curls, swirling through them, soft, slow. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, and she could hear in his voice what a difficult thing that had been for him to say.

But now she didn’t know what she was supposed to say because he hadn’t reacted to her confession the way he’d reacted to Brenda. “I’m not having sex with you,” she muttered. “You screwed the pooch—again—and I don’t want bitch-in-heat all up inside me.”

He sighed heavily, but he cupped her cheek and caressed her cheekbone with his thumb, which felt so, so good. The touch of another human, warm, gentle, caring … She dropped her shoe, and her head, bracing her torso with her elbows on her knees.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you left,” he murmured.

“That was almost convincing.”

He took his hand away. “Is there anything I can say right now that you’ll believe?” he asked wearily.

She hooted. “You’re a salesman! Salesmen lie. You have an abundance of salesman’s charisma you use like a knife.”

“My charisma,” he drawled sarcastically. “Like your eyes.”

She ignored that. “And, unlike everybody else, I have no vested interest in believing you, whereas you have a vested interest in keeping me around.”

“And what’s been your vested interest in sticking around?” he shot back. “Besides my pretty face, gutter mouth, and talented dick?”

She gulped and was glad for the darkness so he couldn’t see her flush. Yes, he had an over-the-top charisma that attracted her, but there was more.

I hate you.

It was the cracks in his ego showing through because he liked her and he didn’t want to, especially because of her financial impurity. But they talked. He enjoyed her company. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been sexually attracted to a smart, clever, charismatic man who could think and simply enjoyed her company. Every time he fell on his face with her, he came back again.

She didn’t know if he was stubborn, challenged, or narcissistic, but that had never happened before, and she wanted him to not fall on his face again. She wanted him to—

“Tell me,” she said low, “you would be able to tell if I faked an orgasm.”

Silence.

“And then tell me you would care if I came or not.”

“I would care,” he said immediately, softly, as if that were true and he was shocked and dismayed that it was true.

She believed him. For whatever reason, she could hear the truth in the things that came out of his mouth. The same way he could see that her eyes were plain gray.

“But … ?”

“No, I wouldn’t be able to tell,” he admitted reluctantly.

“You wouldn’t know how to get me there if you could tell.”

He sighed in what sounded like resignation. “No.”

It was when he confessed the truth she loved him the most.

She closed her eyes and shook her head at herself. How many times had she convinced herself she was in love? How many times was it because she wanted a relationship with a charismatic man, because she just wanted to hear one say I love you, Lydia?

Once.

Just once.

Sincerely.

She was too old for that now. How old, she didn’t know, but she’d kept herself away from men for the last few years because she was tired of being unable to tell if she were being conned. She continued working at the knot.

“Daisy, come back. Hate me all you want, but get some sleep. I’ll … sleep on the floor.”

“Fine.” He tensed and she laughed harshly. “You didn’t expect that, did you? You wanted me to be all, ‘Oh, no, it’s okay.’” She said it in a bright chirpy voice. “‘You can sleep with me. Or I’ll sleep on the floor, no problem!’ Like that’s gonna happen.”

He growled and slipped off the bunk, patted around to find a piece of floor he could fit on. She stood and climbed the ladder. “The whole bed to myself. Yahoo.”

“I have never met anyone like you,” he grumbled, still pushing things around. “Male, female. Sebastian has my number, but it suits his purpose to humor me.”

“Sebastian’s the alpha in your relationship.”

“Bullshit,” he snapped.

That stung. She could hear it in his voice. “Look, Jack. I’d like to have sex with you, but—”

“No kidding,” he snarled, “which is why I’m so pissed about your hot and cold.”

“—you have to earn it and every time I think maybe you have, you do something so assholey even I can’t deal and you know how high my tolerance for assholes is. Honestly, I have no idea how women put up with you. That they do makes them cheap.”

“So wanting to fuck me means you think you’re not?”

Exasperated, she sighed heavily. “I am the top in this relationship.”

“That is bullshit!”

She ignored that, too. “I don’t have to put out to get something out of you because you don’t have anything to give me. Not even an orgasm. You are the bottom because you want your life back and I may be the only one who can give it to you.”

“All I have to do is walk out the door,” he snapped. “You don’t run my life.”

“Would you rather sit here and be bored or sit in an interview room with a carafe of coffee, peeing your pants because they won’t let you go to the bathroom because you’re telling them about how you concocted an elaborate plan to kill Brenda?”

“You’re paranoid,” he said flatly. “I’m going along with it because almost getting killed was a little traumatic and I’d rather decompress with the person who was almost killed with me than have to think about and endlessly relay details.”

She ignored that. “And on top of it all, I just told you I don’t have any problem participating in an underground economy and cheating the government, and you haven’t given me a lecture, much less told me to get the eff out. And I certainly am not stupid or naïve or desperate enough to buy into a Ponzi scheme.”

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” he blurted.

She snorted. “Hear that?”

“What?”

“My eyes rolling.” Her heart thundering. Her blood racing. Her lungs struggling for air. He wasn’t lying. He believed he was telling the truth, but he didn’t really understand what falling in love really meant. Well, neither did she.

Still, the words were out there in the open. I think I’m falling in love with you.

He started to chuckle. “You win. Hand me my pillow and a blanket, willya?”

Without a word—because she couldn’t speak—because she was breathless—she swung the pillow over and smacked him in the head as hard she could.

“Dammit,” he muttered.

Then she dropped one of the knotted-up blankets on top of his head. Then she laid down on her side facing away from him, snuggled up with her linens and pillow, went to sleep …

… and woke up with Jack against her, his ribs to her back. His breathing was slight except for a soft snore here and there.

She smiled sleepily and let her eyelids drift closed again.

---

17: EVEN FLOWERS HAVE THEIR DANGERS

HE WAS SO FUCKING pissed he could barely stand it, watching Daisy come out of the bathroom the next morning all damp, her antique gold curls dark and barely wavy, looking at Simon, laughing and smiling. Joking. She was clever and street savvy. The doc loved having someone cultured and educated around to trade jokes and match wits with. Their quips went right over Jack’s head, which bugged him, but not enough to ask them to explain because it would take forfuckingever to get through the backstory on whatever high literature or music or movies they were referencing.

He knew. He’d made the mistake of asking. Once.

And she had his number, had had it from the second she met him. She liked him because he couldn’t see her magic trick. She’d fuck him, but she could take him or leave him. She knew exactly where she was in the pecking order and, much as he hated that it was true, he liked that she knew it.

What bugged him most was that he liked it that she shoved his face in it. He’d taken down more than a few people who’d had the chutzpah to assert their power over Jack, even if they were right. You think you’re the alpha? I’ll let you think that … right before I send you to the poorhouse.

No, Sebastian wasn’t the alpha in his and Jack’s relationship because they had different packs and sometimes they hunted together as a team. She knew that. She’d said it to poke at him.

It had worked because right now it was true, with Melinda dropping her own concerns to do Jack’s job, Bucho dropping his to cover Jack’s ass, Sebastian calling in his cousin on a second’s notice to defend him, Knox abandoning his job to be here to take care of Jack, and Daisy dragging Jack all the way up from downtown to Spanish Harlem and keeping him hidden. Yeah, so what if she was up to her eyeballs in paranoia. It was the thought that counted.

He wasn’t lying when he told her he needed to decompress, but he didn’t know where that had come from. It wasn’t like he’d thought about it. What he knew he didn’t want to think about was that she was as shady as Sebastian could get, the same way he didn’t want to think about what his lawyer might have—fuck it, did do—execution-style murder, for God’s sake!

He was in a position to have to be protected by people he’d rather not know at all. Because he liked them and dammit this was why he kept people away from him. Everybody was like this.

Even a little piano teacher from Kansas who looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Piano teachers were supposed to be pure! They also weren’t supposed to wear tight leathers and ride motorcycles! Why couldn’t she have been a fucking librarian?! A shady piano teacher who thought he was running a romantic Ponzi scheme.

That hurt. In his gut, deep down where his ethics lived.

He headed into the bathroom pissed off, unable to stay because he wanted to watch her and listen to her, which would cement her place in this relationship. God, he hated that so much. It wasn’t even that she was a woman. He liked alphas, period—as long as they worked for or against him or had a different pack. He just wasn’t going to be anybody’s beta.

And now he was. To a chubby little piano player from fucking Kansas who had made it clear she thought New Yorkers were provincial. How in God’s name anybody from Flyover, USA could consider New Yorkers provincial was beyond him, but this person from Nowheresville, Kansas knew Jack’s own city better than Jack did and was giving him the grand tour.

On a motorcycle.

Where Jack was “riding bitch.”

He snarled at the faucet.

He hated her. Hated her with every cell in his body. Hated every luscious curve and millimeter of smooth skin and strand of curl and—

God, he was going to come, the way he’d been taking care of his hard-on since he met her, while he thought about how much he hated her and her deconstruction of his personality and her questionable accounting and her soft lips and hard nipples and wet pussy and cushy ass—

He moaned when he came, wishing he could have done it in that, that, that person he hated.

And wanted.

And was falling in love with.

At least, he thought he was. He didn’t know.

She was so not his type.

She was shady.

He hated her.

“Daisy,” he said when he finally left the bathroom to see her sitting at the table with the kids, whose faces lit up when they saw him. They scrambled off their seats to throw themselves at him.

Daisy tried to hide her smile when he mouthed I hate you at her over their heads. She smirked and nodded, then went back to her breakfast, dismissing him.

Hated her.

“Pick me up, Jack!” Mary demanded.

He rolled his eyes and did, hugging the child to him when she wrapped herself around him. He hated her too. And Jesus.

“Howya doin’, kid?” he asked, ruffling the boy’s hair.

“Good,” he said shyly.

Jack had no idea how such a shy kid could get and be so tough on the streets, control Hurricane Mary, and run messages for gangsters without getting killed.

“Daisy’s taking us to the library today!” Mary blurted. Right in Jack’s ear.

He slid a glance at Daisy, who had arisen to get a card from Simon. A New York Public Library card.

“God, really?” he demanded. “I got a price on my head and you’re going to the library?”

Daisy and Simon both turned to look at him as if he were an impertinent child. “Yes,” Daisy said coolly. “The children and I need a break. From you.”

That needled him. “We’ve only been together three days,” he said testily.

“Maybe you should think about that,” she said archly, and Simon laughed.

Hated her.

“I need your help again today, Jack,” Simon said as she turned away. “Other than the exam room, I mean.”

That shocked him, and he put Mary on her feet. “Doing what?”

“I need to go run errands only I can do, and I need you to stay here and make sure nobody gets in. Then you’ll help me rearrange and fetch and carry.”

“Are you serious?” he sniped, pissed off at being demoted to security guard and forklift.

“If someone comes for treatment,” Simon continued, ignoring him, “let them in, make them as comfortable as possible. We have a lot to do today. That’s why I let you sleep so long and there’s coffee.”

“If you know how to make it,” Daisy said slyly.

“Fuck you,” he mumbled. It made her chuckle, but it made the kids give him a disapproving side-eye.

“You don’t say that to people you love,” Mary said haughtily.

Jack’s eyebrows arched. “And you would know this … how?”

She folded her arms across her chest and harrumphed. “Just because no one loves me—”

“Or me,” Jesus said quietly.

Jack’s chest hurt.

“—doesn’t mean I don’t know what a family’s supposed to do and not.”

“She’s got a point,” Simon called.

“We aren’t a family,” Jack said as calmly as he could, considering he was holding himself together by a cheap cotton thread. “And I don’t love her.”

“We could be,” she shot back. “You and me and Jesus and Daisy. A real family. And you do too love her.”

Jack’s jaw dropped on the floor and he was vaguely gratified that Daisy looked just as shocked.

“That’s not gonna happen, sweetcheeks,” Daisy said abruptly. “No, we don’t love each other. We can barely tolerate each other. And I have a home a thousand miles away. A pretty little house I love. A job I love.”

Both children gasped. “But your accent is from here,” Jesus protested. “In Spanish.”

“I have a Cuban accent,” she corrected. “I’m in New York to interview for a job I didn’t get and then this happened.”

“Oh,” Mary said in a tiny voice. “Soooo … you’re gonna just … leave? When Jack can go home?”

Her gaze flicked up to Jack and she said, “I have no reason to stay.”

God, that hurt.

“But you were kissing,” Mary argued almost desperately. “And you’re sleeping together.”

“Love doesn’t have much to do with that, which you should know by now, so forget your happy-family fantasies. I’m going home. Jack’ll go back to Wall Street and forget about us in a month. I thought you knew better than that.”

Mary and Jesus deflated while Jack’s head spun. Did she really think he could forget about her? Or the children?

But … he couldn’t leave them here. Let two kids in single digits stay on the street with no … anything? It was only because Daisy had thought of it that they had better clothes and food, made them take showers, brush their teeth, and read to them. Yes, Simon’s floor or couch was available to them, her fridge and bathroom, too, but they didn’t always take advantage of it nor did they do anything Simon told them to do. They didn’t have to. Somebody in the neighborhood would feed them if they were hungry, let them crash, but what they did was their business. Everyone treated them like adults—except Daisy. And Jack.

Because they weren’t adults. They were children.

“Jack?” Mary whispered, looking up at him, her heart in her eyes.

He looked back helplessly. “I— Look. When we get out of this mess, you two are coming home with me. To stay.”

Daisy and Simon snorted at the same time, but the kids— They looked shellshocked, and then they did the damnedest thing.

They clamped their mouths shut and went back to the table to eat their breakfast.

“What?!” Jack demanded.

The kids slid him a disparaging look, then continued to eat.

“They’ve heard it before,” Daisy said airily. “You aren’t the first, won’t be the last. Take the kids home and try family-hood on for size. Send ’em back out when the novelty’s worn off. Or offer a forever home until they get out of hand and then decide they don’t have time for high-maintenance kids who need therapy and medication, lots of love and attention, and are suddenly going to understand that a home and a family means rules and boundaries, which they’ve never had. Take ’em home, they’ll be crawling out the windows in two weeks.”

Okay, maybe he’d been a little hasty and maybe he was a tad (a lot) relieved they didn’t believe him. But he just couldn’t leave them here.

Could he?

Jack was a dick. He knew this. He didn’t care.

Jack ignored other people’s feelings, needs, and desires. He knew this. He didn’t care.

Jack was unacquainted with poor people and if he thought about them at all, he thought about them as a collective, some giant ant colony. He knew this. He didn’t—

Care.

He didn’t know what would happen when they got out of this mess. The best case scenario was that they all went back to whatever they were doing, but life didn’t work that way. Or, he didn’t think it did. For most people. Did it?

“They just said they wanted us to be a family.”

“With Daisy!” Mary wailed. “Can’t you make her wanna stay? Where you marry her and, and, and everything! A mommy and a daddy!”

Marriage?! Was she serious? He said the only thing he could think of. “Daisy’ll be a mean mommy.”

“She’s not mean,” Jesus growled.

Jack’s brow rose. Maybe this was a conversation he really didn’t want to have. But he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “She gets on your case.”

“She likes to read to us and she can do it in Spanish.”

Low blow.

“Good cop, bad cop,” Daisy said airily. “You might take them home, but when you’re done playing daddy and the ego strokes don’t scratch your itch, you’ll throw them to half a dozen nannies who are paid to put up with them. Mean mommy enforces boundaries then snuggles. Nice daddy backs her up, goes off to provide for the family, comes home at night, and sits down to family dinner. The daddy and mommy love each other. The children know they’re loved and protected and safe and cared for by people who aren’t going to see them as warts. That is what they mean by a family, and neither one of us is capable of giving them that. They want us, you and me, together, Mommy and Daddy, lovers in love, parents at the dinner table, bedtime routine with kisses and glasses of water and stories, and that’s not ever going to happen. They’d rather stay here than set up shop with either of us.”

“I’d go with you, Daisy,” Jesus said low.

“Me too!” Mary said. “And a nice little house with a mommy who loves us and’ll take care of us.”

Jack looked at her, her expression one of shock. She’d just backed herself into the same corner he’d put himself in, only he had wiggle room because he had no credibility. She had no wiggle room because she had all the credibility.

Mary looked at Jesus. “But maybe Jack’d move in with us at Daisy’s house.”

“That would be okay, too,” Jesus said matter-of-factly.

“Hold up,” Jack said abruptly. “For the record, I am never getting married. We don’t have time to get into this right now, but this discussion’s not over.”

The kids rolled their eyes and wouldn’t talk to him when he got to the table and sat down, expecting breakfast—

“Get off your butt and get it yourself,” Daisy snapped. “It’s been three days. Haven’t you figured out nobody’s here to serve you personally?”

Jack opened his mouth to bark at her, but clicked it shut when he saw the kids’ expressions. Don’t talk to Daisy like that.

He sighed and got up, got a dish out of the cabinet—

“For heaven’s sake, Jack! There’s a dish in the rack. Use it and clean it after you’re finished eating! I swear, you’re such a spoiled brat.”

He slid her a look that would’ve withered anyone within ten yards of him downtown.

She looked straight back at him, an eyebrow arched, just waiting for him to say something she could pounce on.

God, she was gorgeous, standing there with the sun blazing in behind her, giving her a halo over those golden curls that had tightened up and lightened as they dried. He took her in slowly, from the top of her head to the ordinary gray eyes to the pouty mouth—

That she licked.

On purpose.

Fuck you, he mouthed.

She smirked and shook her head.

And he continued with his perusal. The breasts he’d held last night, full but firm, the hard nipple he wanted so badly to suck. The waist that nipped in too far for her hips and tits, and belly that pooched out, stretching her hippie blouse a little. The hips that widened too far out. The V between her legs where she could get wet and dry in a snap. The short but strong white legs and dainty feet with nails painted neon green.

“That’s an ugly color,” he said, pointing to her toes.

“I painted them especially for you,” she cooed.

Mary giggled. Jesus snorted then ducked his head.

Jack didn’t know what was happening to him and he wasn’t sure he liked it, but he shot closer to her, shoved his hand in her curls, and kissed her.

He was vaguely aware of the children hooting and catcalling, but he was very aware of the fact that, after the initial shock wore off, Daisy was kissing him back.

And kissing.

And kissing.

“I could kiss you all day,” he whispered, still kissing her.

“No talking.”

Right. He’d talked himself right out of sex last night.

And last week.

Which meant … they wouldn’t be in this predicament at all if he’d kept his mouth shut.

That was a mistake he wasn’t going to repeat.

“Yeah, okay, Mommy and Daddy,” Simon said testily from across the room. “I have things to do today. I need you three—” She waggled her finger amongst Daisy and the kids. “—gone, and him here to do some heavy lifting.” She looked at Jack. “You can eat after they leave.”

Jack was so stunned, the only thing he could do was stand there like an idiot and watch them dart out the door. Daisy was last after putting on her innocent little white tennies and putting her hair up in a topknot. She just breezed out the door without looking at him, without acknowledging his existence.

“Eat,” Simon said gruffly. “I wasn’t kidding about working your behind off today. Can’t get any help around here so when I get some, I take it.”

Jack decided to keep his mouth shut.

---

18: TOP

“DAISY,” MARY WHINED on their way to catch the train. “Why can’t we be a family? You like Jack a whole lot and he likes you, too, and you can move here. It’d be easy.”

“Stop it,” Lydia said brusquely, still dizzy from the way they’d dropped that on her head.

Mary huffed and stopped cold, crossing her little arms over her little chest, as she did when she was pouting. Honestly, Lydia didn’t know how she’d lasted as long as she had on the streets acting like a spoiled brat.

“Mary,” Jesus crooned at her, rubbing her back.

That was how.

“Jesus,” Lydia said with as much calm and patience as she could muster.

You just wait until you have kids, Buttercup. Then you’ll see how easy it is.

“You were right, Mingo,” Lydia muttered, then turned her back on them both and continued walking down the street.

You’ve been saying that a lot this week. I like it. Say it again.

“It again.”

Brat.

She wouldn’t get on the train without the children but they could damn well catch up to her by the time she did feel like getting on the train.

Why wasn’t her dad here with her? she thought resentfully as she trudged along, losing herself in a sea of people who were a lot more notable than she was. “What do I do?” she whispered.

You know exactly what I want you to do.

Go home and take the kids with her.

She wasn’t surprised when she felt two smaller bodies snuggle up against hers while she walked.

“I’m sorry, Daisy,” Mary said in a small voice, slipping her hand into Lydia’s.

“I am not going to put up with your temper tantrums. This is serious.” She looked at Jesus and said, “Stop coddling her.”

He looked cowed. “Coddling?”

“Pampering. Giving in. Trying to talk her out of her pouts. Spoiling her. How do you two manage to get through a day without getting yourselves in a peck of trouble?”

He shrugged. He really didn’t know, and probably couldn’t explain it if he did. She held her hand out and Jesus took it.

Taking the children home with her was also the most moral thing she could do and for whatever reason, the universe decided to make her responsible for the well-being of people who were powerless.

I raised you to make moral choices, Buttercup.

“Daddy, this is permanent. I’m still dealing with the fallout from the last moral choice I made to protect someone.”

But your conscience is clear.

That was true. Mingo had always stressed the value of a clear conscience. Any other negative fallout was just crap one had to put up with.

“We’re talking the rest of my life here.”

Leaving them on the streets is immoral. Putting them in the system is immoral. Letting that dickhead take up hobby parenting is immoral.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to take them home with her. It was that she would rather …

You’re really going to fall for that ‘I think I’m falling in love with you’ bullshit? Again? You aren’t going to get the family you want out of that dick.

They clipped down the subway stairs hand in hand, and she barely caught the two before they hopped the stile. She finished buying their MetroCards, then, on the platform she knocked the two of them together in front of her and squatted. “Do not ever do that again,” she growled. “I have money. We will pay like normal people and we will pass for normal people, not criminals. Do you understand me?”

Their eyes wide, their mouths turned down, they nodded.

She was surprised when they still wanted to hold her hand as they waited for the train. They didn’t stand out here at all. There were tourists with their children. There were children by themselves, albeit a little older than Jesus might be, who were horsing around a little, but well away from the train. Lydia was adorably cute. Adorably ordinary. Adorably forgettable. The kids blended in as well as she did.

Once they were on the train, she squished herself in beside a man whose knees were spread out while he bent and read his paper. He protested.

She looked at him and smiled a little. “I didn’t mean to almost sit on you,” she said breathily as she pulled Mary onto her lap.

The man looked at her, shocked, then mumbled something about “no problem” and dragged his eyes away from hers. He didn’t move his knees, but now it was because he wanted to touch her. She quelled a smile. Sometimes her eyes did that, made men want to touch her as if she were a magic lamp and if they rubbed enough a genie would pop out and grant three wishes.

Jack didn’t see it.

And his idea of sweet nothings was “I hate you” and “fuck you.” The “bitch,” though— Jack appreciated clever vindictive bitchiness, but delivered the way he had last night, it was the insult of last resort for a man who felt powerless. Powerless men were not interesting, so she’d poked and prodded at him to see how much he’d take, which was …

Not much.

She touched her lips.

He asserted his alpha whenever she tried to distance herself from him. Aaaaand she … liked it.

“Daisy?” Mary whispered.

“What, baby?” Lydia asked quietly, again startled out of her bittersweet musings.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

Mary didn’t believe her, but it didn’t matter. She trusted Lydia, which was all either child needed. Lydia pressed the child’s head gently down in the crook of her neck and rubbed her shoulders. Jesus stood at the pole, stoic as usual, unwilling to sit anywhere that would take him any farther away from Lydia than he had to be because of that stupid man sitting next to her. Lydia spread her own legs and gestured for Jesus to come sit on her lap too. He did. Too eagerly for a street kid.

That kid was a mess. He needed her more than Mary did. He needed more of everything than Mary did, and he kept giving her what little he had.

“Jesus,” Mary whined.

“Stop it,” Lydia said sharply, settling Jesus into her body, stifling a smile when he shifted and squirmed until the man next to them got up with a glare. But Lydia looked up at him. “Thank you so much,” she murmured with a smile.

“No problem,” he said, irritated but what else could he say?

“Mary,” she said, “sit here.”

With a huff, Mary got off her lap and plopped down in the vacated seat. “Mean mommy,” she muttered, folding her arms across her chest.

Lydia snorted and had Jesus move to her other leg where she could cradle him against her shoulder. He wasn’t much bigger than Mary.

He needed so much.

She wrapped her other arm around Mary and pressed her close too.

“I miss you so much, Mingo.”

Mingo? Still? C’mon. You know I hate it when you’re mad at me.

“I have been mad at you since you got yourself killed because you just couldn’t keep your mouth shut. What is it with me and men who invariably shoot their mouths off at the wrong time?”

I am in no way like that dick.

“Little bit too close to home, huh? Mingo.”

Silence.

“You guys hungry?” she asked quietly.

They both nodded, which surprised her until she saw they were both falling asleep. So much for the library. By the time they got to their stop, both kids were zonked, and Lydia’s leg was going to fall off. She managed to shift them around to a bench seat where they flanked her. Somehow Jesus managed to stretch out, his head in her lap, and Mary was once again in her arms, dead to the world, her thumb in her mouth.

Lydia drew some annoyed glances. Some sympathetic ones. Some wry ones. Some disdainful ones. Some ridiculing ones. They rode all the way to Brooklyn, then all the way back to the Bronx. And a couple more times after that until rush hour. She awakened them a few stops from Wall Street because she was starving. The children were disoriented and frightened, snapping to attention and looking to bolt. She barely kept hold of them long enough to explain and get them off the train without losing them.

“I don’t like it here,” Mary whispered as dusk fell and they got mixed up with businesspeople going this way and that, but now Lydia had a plan.

“I know, Buttercup. We’re going to go see my friend. He’ll get dinner for us.”

She hoped.

She had no idea if Sebastian would be at Blackwood Securities or his apartment, nor could she guess which one the police would be watching more, but she had to get to him somehow. There was a flash of a clock in a window of a pub. Six-thirty. Sebastian was a night owl like Lydia, so he might still be at work.

They were walking against the tide, but too many people were too involved with their trade books and getting to their trains on time to pay attention to a down-market woman with two down-market kids, even when they slipped in through a door an after-hours worker was exiting.

“Excuse me,” she said sweetly to a security guard. “I’m here to see Mr. Taight.”

“He’s out of the office,” the woman said disdainfully, looking Lydia up and down. “It’s after hours. How’d you get in here?”

“Could you please tell him Lydia is here? Please?”

The woman hesitated. She was a New Yorker. They were rude because they were so closely packed in they had to set some boundaries somehow. But sincere courtesy shocked them into doing what she wanted. Lydia was good at faking sincerity.

She leaned forward and feigned confession. “It’s about Mr. Blackwood,” she whispered.

The guard pursed her lips and squinted at her, studying her for a few seconds. “Fine.”

“Mr. Taight, please … Yes, hi, Mr. Taight. A woman named Lydia is here—”

“Send her up.” That bark was so loud even Lydia could hear it. “Private elevator. Now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lydia gave the guard an understanding smile when she flushed, taking her keys and leaving the desk to guide them to the elevator that went straight to the top. “Bless your heart,” Lydia breathed gratefully. “Can you … maybe … forget we were here? I’m sure I can tell Mr. Taight how much of a help you’ve been.”

“Um … yes. Of course.”

The elevator shot up so fast, Jesus plopped on the floor and tucked his face in his drawn-up knees. Mary, of course, thought it was awesome.

Sebastian met them at the elevator, but he did stall out when he saw the kids.

“I’ll explain later. Meantime, we’re famished.”

“Um, okay then.” Then he surprised Lydia by taking Mary and hefting her up in his arms. She was even more shocked when Mary sighed happily and melted against him. The girl seemed to have a knack for knowing whom to trust, which was probably her real value to Jesus. “Better get him to the bathroom. He looks like he just ate bad fish.”

Lydia looked down and gasped. “Jesus, baby, c’mon. Up you go.” Jesus groaned. Sebastian disappeared for a second then shoved a trashcan in her hand.

Jesus promptly used it.

Except there was absolutely nothing in his stomach. Lydia sighed and waved to Sebastian to go. They were in Jack’s private office and his private elevator that wasn’t going anywhere, so she sat with Jesus and rubbed his back while they waited for Mary to come back with water.

“C’mon, take a sip. That’s right. Crackers?”

“Can we go down the regular way?” he asked miserably.

“Nope.”

It didn’t take as long for the executive restaurant to send up food as it did to get Jesus off the elevator floor and less green. Mary had made herself comfortable on top of an enormous desk overlooking Manhattan, which was now lit up against the darkness. But she wasn’t looking at Manhattan. She was looking at Knox Hilliard, who was sitting at the desk covered in open law books, legal pads, and fountain pens, grilling him about what he was doing, where he was from, if he was Jack’s friend. Knox was trying to be patient, but he looked beat to death, his young face looking much younger but also haggard, his perfectly coiffed hair from the press conference in tousled spikes. He was wearing a Rush hoodie.

“Mary,” Lydia said with gentle firmness. “Mr. Hilliard is Jack’s friend and lawyer. But he’s been working very hard and he’s very tired. Please let him do his job.”

She was okay with that, but she held her hands out for Lydia to pick her up. The longer she was with Lydia and Jack, the more she regressed. Lydia had no idea how old Mary really was, but she was starting to act like she was four.

She needs to be a child, Buttercup. No matter how hard you worked, you were still a child, still had a home and a family, still went to school and did things children do.

Lydia sighed.

“Get some sleep, pal,” Sebastian said quietly to Knox, whose eyes, Lydia now saw, were red and bleary. She dug in her purse and pulled out her ever-present bottle of Visine and tossed it at him.

“Thanks,” he croaked as he arose and stumbled a little against the desk. Lydia looked at him warily, wondering where the suave and self-possessed lawyer had gone, if he was drunk or …

“You sure you don’t want to sleep here?” Knox gave him a killing look, but Sebastian shrugged. “Maybe you shouldn’t be such a prude. He’s got insomnia,” Sebastian explained as Knox dragged himself out of the office. “But his brain stops working after about thirty-six hours. He’s right around forty-eight hours.”

“He’s been awake since he got here?”

Sebastian nodded. “We’re waiting for our people to find Val. Until Jack pops up, it’s really the only thing we can do.” She gestured to the cluttered desk. “That’s his caseload from back home.”

Lydia’s mouth dropped open a little. “He’s—”

“Working long-distance, yes. He’s got a trial starting next week. Right now, he needs a few hours of whatever z’s he can get.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice, humbled at the sacrifice, ashamed that Jack was upset with something Knox might have done. “Relationships,” Lydia whispered.

“What?”

“Um … ” She shook her head and looked at Sebastian. “Later. Val?”

“I’ll tell you while we eat,” Sebastian said while he stood at a table coaxing Jesus into crackers and Sprite. Once the rest of the food was laid out and all four of them were at the table and eating, Sebastian gestured to the kids and said, “These are your runners?”

“Yeah, but I need cash and I don’t trust them to bring all of it back.” Jesus had the good grace to look guilty. “I’ve been buying food and clothes for us and the people we’re staying with. They need a lot of resources, and I’m about tapped out. I can pay you back, but I don’t want to hit the ATM.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he muttered and dug in his back pocket for his wallet. Jesus’s eyes went wide when he saw the hundred-dollar bills fan out. Sebastian didn’t notice, but Lydia did, watching all that money like it was a hunk of beef.

“Jesus,” Lydia said sternly.

He looked at her, startled, then flushed and took a cautious bite of loaded baked potato.

“You don’t have to eat it now. We can take it when we go.” She looked at Sebastian. “But if you can order more and doggie bags, I’d like to take it to the people we’re staying with.”

Sebastian handed her the bills and headed to the phone to do just that.

Finally, Lydia felt like she could relax after a day of forcing herself to be hyperaware of everything and everyone, letting the kids sleep without fear, being rocked by the rhythm of the trains.

“News on your end?”

“Jack’s uncle dropped a few words in the right ears. Melinda’s handling the board of directors. They’re not unhappy Bucho and I are pulling so much weight so long as neither of us have nefarious intentions. But since Jack is either in trouble or a target for murder, they don’t know if they want to get in the middle of that. Generally, money trumps fraud, but not murder.”

“Don’t tell me that hasn’t happened.”

“They don’t do it themselves,” he said testily.

“Does that make me an accomplice?”

Sebastian shrugged. “It could be argued that you were duped. So the cops have been crawling all over the last two days, but nobody’s been here today. I can’t rule out the possibility they’ll show up tonight, but we’ll have warning so you can get in Jack’s private bedroom.”

Lydia’s lip curled, and Sebastian laughed. “Already tired of him, are you?”

“They’re sleeping together,” Mary volunteered. Sebastian’s eyebrow shot into his hairline and Lydia’s mouth flattened while shaking her head wearily. “And you should’ve seen ’em kissing this morning!”

Lydia rolled her eyes and she slumped when Sebastian grinned. “Remind me, next time I’m falling on my face with a woman, to get almost-murdered in front of her and then go on the lam with her. That’ll get me laid, for sure.”

Lydia shrugged and continued to eat. Then she sat up and blurted, “He will not shut his fat mouth.”

Sebastian burst out laughing.

She slammed her fork down on the table because now that she and the kids were safe, they were marginally rested, and had some good food in their bellies, she could indulge her mad. “Get me some duct tape tomorrow, and that’s not a joke. Jerk can’t stand not being the center of attention.”

Sebastian was still laughing, leaning back in his chair, his hand over his mouth. He couldn’t stop laughing, which also annoyed her.

“He said we could go live with him when we got everything okay again,” Mary announced.

That shut Sebastian right up. “Come again?”

“He said me and Jesus could go live with him when he went back home. All of us. Daisy, too. And we can be a family. Please, Daisy?”

Sebastian looked at Jesus, who nodded soberly, then at Lydia, who shrugged. “He also said he would never get married—”

“That’s the truth.”

That hurt. The whole situation hurt. “And living together without the piece of paper, but still acting like we are is the same thing. They know better than to believe that. I hope,” she added pointedly.

“I was just saying,” Mary muttered sulkily.

“Did he really say that?” Sebastian asked quietly.

“He’s confused,” Lydia said, her comments directed mostly at the children. “Disoriented. Pissed off. Talking to hear himself. I don’t know if that’s just him or a nervous tic.”

“Ah.”

“Um … ” Lydia hesitated to make this request because it would be a huge pain in the butt for Sebastian and his crew, but … “You said Jack has a bedroom here?”

“He can’t stay here,” Sebastian said sharply. “Yes, it’s well camouflaged, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“I didn’t mean him. I meant them.” She tilted her head toward Jesus, then Mary. “They’ve done well, but Jack and I want them off the streets. It’d be nice if they had a safe place to stay while we get this all sorted out.”

Sebastian pursed his lips and worried them with his fingers while he looked between them. “I’ll take them back to my apartment tomorrow,” he said thoughtfully.

Mary’s legs started pumping. “We get to go home with you?”

“I don’t live here. It’s temporary.”

Jesus and Mary exchanged sober glances.

“I’ll get a temp nanny or something.”

That was when they deflated.

“Get a kind grandmotherly type, you know, one who’ll read to them. They like that.” Lydia watched them, wishing she could just … leave.

New York.

Roll back a week, before she’d met Jack.

Roll back three weeks, before she’d left home.

Roll back a year, before a powerless person had turned Lydia’s life upside down and forced her to make a moral choice that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

The children were looking back at her soberly. “Sebastian’s place is really nice,” she said as kindly as possible, but she knew: No matter how much they might like Sebastian, no matter how safe they’d be, how good the food, how wonderful their lives would be from here on out, leaving them was the most cruel thing she could do to them. They thought she was punishing them for making their wishes known.

“Don’t you want us, Daisy?” Mary asked softly.

“I do,” she answered immediately, just as softly. “But right now the biggest thing is to get Jack out of trouble.”

“Why?” Jesus asked quietly “You keep saying you don’t like him.”

“That’s a good question,” Sebastian murmured.

Mary slapped Jesus’s arm. “She does too like him.”

Lydia was about to reprimand Mary, but Jesus swung around and got in her face with an ugly snarl that shocked the hell out of Lydia. Mary quailed, her eyes wide, her mouth trembling. “I’m sorry, Jesus,” she whispered, half terrified.

Yeah. Motherhood. These kids.

They are a little more messed up than you were, I’ll admit.

A lot more. And there were two of them.

That’s true.

And Lydia lived alone with no backup.

They can take care of themselves. You couldn’t.

Good point.

“Okay, then,” Sebastian said with fake enthusiasm when Jesus had resumed calmly eating his dinner. Mary was quiet, withdrawn. Scared.

So that was how he did it.

Lydia wondered what he’d done that put the fear of God in her like that.

“You two aren’t going back out on the street to live,” Sebastian continued, “and you’re not going to foster care. Somehow, some way, you’ll have a permanent home with one of us. Understood?”

They both looked at him with wary hope that didn’t make Lydia’s heart hurt because she knew they would get taken care of, if not by Lydia, then by Sebastian.

Oh, hey, that’s a good idea. Why can’t you hook up with that guy?

But they had given her the ultimatum. What to do, what to do.

“They’ll need therapy,” Lydia said low.

“That went without saying.”

“Neither one of them knows how to read. They know streets. Numbers. Stations. Or they may just have a map of Manhattan in their heads; I don’t know. They can add on their fingers.”

“Okay.”

There was no more conversation as Lydia and the children ate their fill, and Lydia packed up the rest of the food for her return trip. She meant to leave before eight, but the children didn’t want to let her go, so Sebastian opened a camouflaged door and let the children loose in what seemed to be a stark but very masculine bedroom. Mary squealed in delight when he told them they could spend the night there, and Sebastian would sleep on the office couch. Even Jesus seemed to be bouncing around.

From where she stood looking out on Manhattan with a good beer in her hand, her back to the bedroom door, she could hear the kids’ excited chatter.

“What are these for?”

“Um, games.”

“What kind of games, Sebastian?”

“Uh … ”

“Oooh, fuzzy bracelets and feathers and pretty ribbons and—what’s this?”

“A … riding crop.”

Which was probably why Knox didn’t want to sleep there and exactly why Lydia didn’t want to see it, why she wasn’t in there helping Sebastian get them through a bedtime ritual that didn’t exist—for any of them.

“What do you do with it?”

“It’s for … um. Horses.”

“Jack has horses?”

Lydia almost snorted beer out her nose.

“Oh, hey, you guys need to brush your teeth and take showers. I’ll get you soap and toothpaste, and find some shirts for you to sleep in.”

“But—”

“Now.”

Lydia looked at the reflection of Sebastian herding them, being a benevolent tyrant and getting them to obey without much fuss, and she was a little surprised. Good cop and bad cop rolled into one. She’d never have guessed Victoria’s cousin would turn out to be a natural dad.

When he was done, the kids were clean, swamped in Jack’s tee shirts, in the king size bed, and already snoring. Sebastian closed the door except for an unobtrusive crack then joined her at the window with a glass of Scotch.

Two.

She took hers and knocked it back, grimacing against the heat.

“That bad?” Sebastian said quietly.

“I’m in love,” she said baldly.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “He’s funny.”

“Ummm … Jack? Are we talking about the same person?”

“Yep,” she said with a sad sigh. “He’s not trying to be funny. But his personality is just so … over the top. His mind is so quick.”

“Sleeping together?”

“Necessity. The deed has not been done. His mouth ran a little too far last night.”

Sebastian laughed. “Again.”

“No man deserves as many chances as I give him and yet … ” She trailed off. “I can almost predict everything that’s going to come out of his mouth and it’s still funny.”

“Huh. And he can’t see the thing you do, so he can let his mouth run off without getting his soul sucked out.”

That made Lydia laugh. “We already came to the conclusion that men with no soul can’t see it. He considers himself special, having no soul.”

“What about his promise to the kids?”

“He means it. For now. He’s grateful. He doesn’t know how to show it. He doesn’t even know what it is, and it’s making him pissy. He likes them, has a protective streak a mile wide, but he doesn’t really know what to do with it. He’ll take them, I have no doubt, but he’ll have them with nannies in two weeks and then he’ll think he’s done this wonderful thing by plopping them in a gilded paradise with people who are paid to put up with them. Jesus is walking around with a permanent case of shellshock, whatever they call that now, and he’s abnormally small for his age. Mary’s— She’s just like Jack.”

He threw his thumb over his shoulder. “And that little tussle at dinner?”

“Jesus coddles her. Spoils her rotten. Hangs back, lets her have the first pick of anything. Takes care of her. I thought he was, well, henpecked, for lack of a better word. Jack and I were wondering how he controls her, how they stay out of trouble. I guess I know now.”

“How do they feel about Jack?”

Lydia bit her lip. “They love him,” she whispered, then wiped the corner of her eye with a knuckle. “Trust him. But not that far.” She told him the whole conversation, to which he replied,

“So you’re going to take them home with you?”

“Yeah. I was a foundling and—”

He started. “Really?”

She nodded. “My father would expect me to take them in because he took me in. He would consider it immoral for me to leave them in less than ideal circumstances and Jack is less than ideal.”

“Leave aside what your dad would think. Do you want to?”

She gulped. “I … want … ” She took a deep breath and puffed her cheeks out when she exhaled.

“You want what they want. All four of you.”

Her mouth twisted.

“In general or with Jack?”

She pulled her lips between her teeth.

“Shit. Well, you’re not going to get it,” he said bluntly.

She was silent for a long time. “He said he was falling in love with me.”

Sebastian said nothing, but in the reflection she could see his mouth purse. “Do you believe him?” he asked slowly.

“Yes.”

He slid a look down at her.

“I can tell when he’s lying. I can tell when he doesn’t understand a concept or understands it superficially. I can tell when he pops off just to hear himself talk. What I can’t tell is when he’s lying to himself.”

“He doesn’t lie to himself so much as he mislabels things because he doesn’t have the time or patience to think about it, but it has the same result.”

“I think he truly believes he’s falling in love with me because I’m a novelty and, at the moment, the alpha.” Sebastian snorted. “He truly believes he can take care of the kids when this is all over with. I also think he’s lying to himself—yes, he does—by believing he can maintain those feelings over time and do what it takes to follow through. The drudgery of everyday life with kids.”

Sebastian nodded slowly. “I can see why you would think that, but one thing: He has excellent followup if it’s important to him. He’s still juggling balls he put in the air twenty years ago that don’t add to his bottom line at all.”

“Which doesn’t say anything about me or the kids.” She paused. “He’s just your run-of-the-mill narcissist.”

“No, he’s not. He’s hyperactive.”

That gave her a bit of pause. “What?”

“He’s not a narcissist. He’s trying to protect the storage space in his brain.”

This was a new concept for her. She could stuff a lot of music and curriculum in her brain. Yet … there was that moment a few nights ago when she could only remember one song to sing to Jesus.

“I’m not twitchy like he is, but my mind goes a thousand miles a minute. I’m sympathetic. The—what you’re calling narcissism—at least for me—is a wall to protect my mind from having more stuff being forced into it by other people. My mind is a suitcase you have to sit on to close, but it’s so packed you can’t. You said his mind is quick. It’s not quick. It’s a centrifuge running at max, spinning too fast to put more in it and expect it not to fly out.” He paused. “It runs in my family. I can deal with Jack because he’s so much like us. Like me. I have coping mechanisms. I know how and when to take time to unpack my mind so I can go on. Jack has no coping mechanisms because he is the way he is and doesn’t think about it. I know when to back off. I know when to get others to back off. I also know when to step in and get him to a place of hyperfocus so he can work well. Cleanly.”

“What do you mean by cleanly? He prides himself on working cleanly already. He thinks the justice system will treat him fairly because he’s the alpha of Wall Street because he works cleanly. He doesn’t want special treatment, just fair treatment. He doesn’t believe that his skin color makes any difference whatsoever even though he has proof it does. He thinks his financial standards will grant him the benefit of the doubt because his ethics are the highest virtue of man and that everyone else should share that opinion.”

“His standards are unreasonable and he’s not pure. He calls the people he cares about allies so he doesn’t feel like he got in the middle of something the way the rest of us do. When I say ‘cleanly,’ I mean without making mistakes. You can tell how nervous he is by how calm he gets. His mouth stops running, his body stops twitching. The quieter he gets, he’s feeling the pressure. Thing is, he does his best work like that. He’s clear-headed. Focused on one thing. Most of the time, his mouth runs and he’s bouncing around because he’s got so much extra energy that it has nowhere to go. When he’s on, it all gets poured into the thing he’s concentrating on.”

Lydia remained silent to think about that, about the way he’d returned from an hours-long pickup game with half a dozen teenagers after running them all into the ground. “That makes a lot more sense,” she said slowly. “It sounds like hell, though. How do you not go crazy?”

He shrugged. “What makes you think we don’t?”

Lydia looked up at him. “How do you know when Jack is?”

“When he needs a fix, he’ll switch over from bonds to derivatives, but when he goes over the edge, he starts making bad trades. Lots of them. In quick succession.” Sebastian hesitated. “He starts fucking questionable women. Lots of them. Which is why he’s in this mess.”

She pursed her lips and looked out at Manhattan. “He’s gone over the edge,” she whispered.

“He went over it before he met you. That’s why I’m here, to get him back from the edge and keep him there until he works through the hangover.” He paused. “It’s like he’s looking for something other than a gambling fix and he starts panicking because he knows he needs to get back to business quickly, but he’s obsessed with the brass ring, whatever that is.”

Lydia blinked. She knew that feeling. All too well. “An unfinished sneeze.” Orgasm.

Sebastian’s brown wrinkled. “Yeah,” he drawled thoughtfully. “Yeah, kinda like that. He didn’t go off the edge before his coup last year. He could get his fix in a couple of days once a month or so and never lose money, make millions of dollars in a few hours. Now he’s trying to do two hundred-hour-a-week jobs and he’s torn in about a thousand directions. That’s when he started losing money and taking him a week or more to do it. This time, it was two weeks. Honestly, nobody else would be able to juggle as many balls as he can, so I’m impressed. Melinda can keep him level for a while, but she doesn’t really understand how it works, so she can’t get him where he needs to be. That’s when she calls me.”

“You’re his coping mechanism.”

Sebastian nodded. “I can help you try to pull him back, but you’re pretty much on your own if you’re going to stick with him. Why you would want to is beyond me.”

“I’m stupid. Desperate. Wanting to feel special and loved by guys exactly like Jack. That appeals to me, the flashy charm, the vulgar humor, the quick repartee. In my mind, I know those guys don’t feel love, especially the way a woman needs it, but I keep trying, keep thinking I can be The One.

“It’s just … he’s brilliant and I need that in a man. The sex is a perq. His looks— I wouldn’t care if he looked like Freddy Krueger. It’s the conversation I crave with a brilliant guy who’s also outrageous and over the top. That’s the kernel of my attraction. Like he’s a window display at Christmastime, filled with pretty sparkly things put together by a brilliant designer. I want to crawl inside him and play with all his sparkly things.”

“That’s interesting. Not healthy, but interesting.”

“And he’s any healthier.”

Sebastian laughed. “Touché.”

“Just talking to him,” Lydia said softly, “is a treat. I … If I thought he would call me when I went home, or … um … Anyway, I haven’t been that entertained in, well—since Victoria moved to Spain. I could listen to him talk about math forever, even though I don’t understand anything more complicated than a-squared plus b-squared equals c-squared.”

Sebastian was quiet for a long time, a melancholy little smile on his face. “If you want to fuck him, fuck him. But don’t think you’re going to be the one he lets inside his display. There’s no room for anybody but him.” Lydia looked away, her eyes burning. “If you think you or anything about this mess is going to change the way he treats women, you’re sadly mistaken. You may save his soul, but you aren’t going to get a piece of it.”

Lydia turned away from the window and went to sit on the couch. Sebastian stayed at the window. “But now I feel like I have to see this through, no matter how much I want to go home and pick up my life. I came here to audition for a job I shouldn’t have had to audition for and somehow acquired two broken kids.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

She shrugged. “You said you had news about Val?”

“Oh, yes. We know her history now, but we don’t know where she is. The address you gave us is no good. She hasn’t worked for an airline since before she dumped Jack.”

“Why is she upset if she dumped him?”

“She met a guy—way older than her. High roller, which Jack wasn’t then. Married him. From what we understand, she really did love him. There were no problems in the marriage. She was pregnant. Happy. Then her husband got stung when he was found to have been embezzling from his company.”

Lydia sighed. She could almost predict the rest of the story. “Jack was the one who blew the whistle.”

“Dude ate a gun before his trial started.”

“So we’re dealing with a grieving widow, not an ex-lover.”

“Mmm hm, one who lost her baby just after the memorial service.”

“Oh, God,” she groaned. Lydia had never been pregnant, but she could abstractly understand losing a child. She had once considered having a hysterectomy, but having her ability to have a child completely removed from her had sent her into a panic. Then she’d sworn off men, so it wasn’t an issue.

Until now.

“Finding her will be the easy part. Proving she pushed Jack is the hard part. Relatively speaking, of course.”

“You know what he’s going to say when I tell him.”

“Yep.”

“You know,” she mused looking down into her glass, “it would be easy to throw yourself in front of a train if you’re feeling hopeless. Even if it’s not hopeless, you don’t give yourself a chance to find out. It’s like right there. You don’t have to plan, don’t have to get the tools, don’t have to do anything. It’s just so easy.”

The glass mirrored his concerned expression. “You have those thoughts?”

She shook her head. “No. I like my life, although the last year has sucked. Vicarious drama from all the society matrons I herd and my students. My colorful window display from my house and my car and my motorcycle and my wardrobe. Just one of many stories I hear when my students decide to unload on me. For some reason, I attract people like that. A lot of them think about it, freshmen mostly. They have time between deciding to do it and planning it to change their minds. But here … I can see these kids, standing there, looking at the yellow line, being scared of falling in, and then suddenly it occurs to them that falling in is their ticket to ride. The burden of planning is gone. One step and your problems are solved. If they think removing themselves will solve their loved ones’ problems too, it’s a no-brainer.”

Sebastian said nothing, letting her sit there for quite a long while, nursing her whiskey, tempted to lie down and sleep right there not because she was sleepy but because she was weary. She couldn’t go back to Sebastian’s because Knox was probably using the guest bedroom now that Lydia wasn’t there. So she sighed and arose, put the glass on the table, picked up the huge bag of takeout boxes, and plodded toward the door.

“Thanks, Sebastian.”

“No problem. Don’t be a stranger because I don’t know how to get in touch with you.”

She nodded and turned to the elevator. He gave her directions on how to get out of the building unseen, which turned out to be right by a subway stair. She clipped down it, refusing to think about having left the children with Sebastian and how Jack would feel about that.

Wondering why he’d even care.

Wondering why.

It wasn’t her problem. None of it was. She’d inserted herself into it because …

Why?

Was it, she wondered as she lounged in an empty car on her way uptown, because he couldn’t see her aurora borealis?

Was it, she wondered as she looked out into the darkness and back again at her reflection and worrying her lips, because he was so over the top?

Was it, she wondered as she glanced at a man coming through the door of the car ahead of hers, because he amused her so much she couldn’t resist all his shiny, sparkly IQ points and dirty quips?

She didn’t know.

Was it, she wondered, that she was really that cynical about and afraid of cops?

That she could answer: Yes, she was definitely that cynical about and afraid of cops, especially since Jack couldn’t keep his mouth shut any more than her father could. Her grief about Mingo’s murder had resurfaced so hard and fast last year, it was taking up a third of her brain and it made her do stupid stuff.

Her new carmate shifted in his seat, recalling her attention, but he didn’t bother her. He sat slumped over, wringing his hands. Lydia tilted her head, caught by something, the same something that told her Ramona sabotaged her on purpose and that someone at Juilliard had a grudge. The same something any troubled student displayed when they were about to say Dr. Charbonneau, can I talk to you?

He was in plain jeans and tee shirt, and a tan patchwork shearling jacket from the seventies. She started to wonder about his story, but then remembered what city she was in and shook it off just in time. She’d been at KU too long, that Midwestern helpfulness having taken firm root.

Now she was wondering why she was even here. She had a perfectly good position at home where her stage fright was a non-starter because performance wasn’t her value to anyone in the music world. She had tenure at … thirty-something. Her forged birth certificate said she was thirty-four.

Was Juilliard a real goal or was it because she was … bored?

Bored with Kansas, her very prestigious lifestyle that she liked because it was packed with fun things, but missing the sparkle of her youth—and knowing she could approximate it in New York. All the sparkle without any of the relationship drama?

Or did she just want to know if she could do it?

None of the above. You’re here because you’re running away from the people who are making your life hell.

“Daddy, please.”

That’s not a bad thing. Just don’t lie to yourself. There is no dishonor in retreat if your only other option is losing, but that’s not your only option. You can fight or you can run, but pick one and commit to it.

She had never wanted her dad back so badly as she had since she’d come to New York. They’d had their share of arguments, especially as she got older and snottier, with a firm grasp of where she was in the family business. She saw now, with time and experience, that snotty teenagers were hell, but ones who were brilliant and indispensable were their own special kind of hell.

But college had knocked her on her face soon enough, where she was far from indispensable, where drawing an adoring crowd with disco hits wasn’t valued, where lazy playing wasn’t tolerated, where freshmen hotshots came to get weeded out. The faster the better. She hadn’t dared flunk out and have to bear Mingo’s disappointment—anger—that she’d wasted her only real chance to get a good college education.

She might have quit just out of a crushed self-esteem had she not been put in the freshman dorm with a strange girl from forty miles away whose parents had her on a very tight leash. Lydia could see why: She was barely sixteen, two years younger than most freshmen, looked like a runway model and dressed like one, too, had a French accent when she wanted one, an IQ in the stratosphere, and a knack for dating men twice her age and never getting herself in a jam.

Victoria was a gift.

She was as egotistical and outrageous as Jack, but she was carelessly kind even if she was unintentionally cruel about it. She wasn’t hyper and she was quiet, so she could sit still and listen. Even when it didn’t seem like she was listening she was listening. Thinking. Drawing conclusions, usually correct. She was a wise, experienced thirty-year-old trapped in a sixteen-year-old’s body and seething with resentment at her parents. Not only could Victoria give Lydia all the sparkle she needed, she made college seem like a pebble she just had to step over.

Lydia, Victoria had reminded her, was a professional musician in a business she had helped to build. Lydia had been hiring people and supervising them since she was thirteen. So what if Lydia hadn’t come to college as a classical pianist? She could play by ear, improvise, and play in a band on a moment’s notice, putting on a professional show without ever having played with the others.

With a change of thinking and some hard work, she could graduate as a virtuoso. Her classmates would graduate as virtuosos but they still wouldn’t be able to do anything Lydia had been doing for years, and would continue doing once she graduated. She didn’t have to waste the rest of her life chasing stardom or teaching piano. She had marketable skills, both in business and music because at the very least, she could make a living wage as a session musician. The odds were, none of her classmates would ever be able to make a living as a performing musician of any sort and they didn’t have a business-oriented brain cell in their heads.

Lydia had left home at the top of the food chain of life.

It was odd to hear her place in life articulated so precisely.

And thoroughly empowering.

Lydia had never doubted her place in the classical music world again.

At a stop fairly close to hers, the stranger got up, startling her. She was distressed to see how long she’d been spacing out, that she’d allowed herself to space out on a New York subway alone, late at night.

He turned toward her, his head bowed, but she looked closer and saw he was crying. Screw it. He needed some serious Midwestern TLC. Simon’s was only ten blocks away, so Lydia got off the train behind him and followed him across the platform to the return train which was coming.

“Sir?”

He kept walking.

“Sir, can you stop a minute? Please?”

Kept walking. At the same sedate pace he’d entered her car and exited. If he kept going— He wasn’t slowing down— There was the yellow line right there and—

“No!” she screamed and darted across the wide platform that he was just about to step off—

She cried out when the train hit him.

Stared in horror at what happened when one missed the nose of the train.

And then she ran.

---

19: SWITCH

JACK WAS LYING IN BED, utterly and completely exhausted. He didn’t think he’d ever worked that hard in his life, not even when his dad gave him the weekend honey-do list. Not even eight teenagers and a couple of days serving as Simon’s nurse had managed to wear him down like that. She must have saved up all those chores just for him because she’d kept him lifting and hauling and rearranging all day. She had a plan and she’d been waiting for the first opportunity to rearrange everyfuckingthing she owned.

She owned a lot. It was all over Harlem. He knew. His dogs were barking from all the trips he made in the back alleys to get what she needed, disguised in jeans, a hoodie, and two teenaged bodyguards in case anybody recognized him.

And she wasn’t finished.

The door opened and the light hit Jack’s eyeballs like a bullet.

“Daisy’s back,” Simon said low, “but she’s a basketcase. Come see.”

Jack bolted off the bed and out the door to see her curled up on the raggedy couch in a fetal position, rocking and sobbing, blubbering and choking, dribbling out words he couldn’t understand. He panicked. What was he supposed to do with a hysterical woman? He looked to Simon questioningly, but she shrugged. “Won’t talk to me. Thought maybe you could do … something.”

“You’re a doctor.”

“Not a psychiatrist. Salesmen are a lot closer to the insane asylum than an E.R. doc.”

“Aw, shit,” he whispered as he squatted in front of Daisy until his face was almost level with hers. Her eyes were squeezed shut and tears were pouring from them. Her skin was flushed and she was hyperventilating, the brown paper bag Simon had given her on the floor.

What the fuck was he supposed to do?

He took the bag, opened it up a little more, and put it to her face. She knocked it away. He did it again and held onto the back of her head to force her nose and mouth into the opening. It took a while until she could draw a decent breath.

He smoothed her hair away from her face, stuck there by the salt from her dried tears and sweat. He couldn’t find anything to say that would penetrate those sobs and all that babbling nonsense. He just stroked her hair, soaked and dark, moisture leaching all the gold out of it.

“Daisy,” he murmured, getting right in her face. “Daisy, sweetheart.”

She stuttered and stammered his name. He thought. He wasn’t sure. But she didn’t open her eyes and her sobs didn’t abate.

“Daize, you need some water and some sleep.” And he needed to get up from this crouch and in a more comfortable position if this trauma was going to be an all-nighter.

“Oh, I think I know what our problem is,” Simon drawled vaguely from behind him where the TV news was on.

He twisted and turned. “Our?”

“Our.”

She clicked the remote so the volume went up. “ … stepped off the platform to his death. The only witness was a Caucasian woman, blonde, approximately five feet, five inches tall, wearing shorts and a red-and-white checked blouse.” Jack’s jaw dropped. “She is sought by police for a statement but is not a suspect. Please be advised that the following footage is graphic.” The security video rolled.

“Oh, my God,” Jack breathed. Unlike Brenda, who’d been shoved all the way in, this man had hit the side of the nose. His body had been cleanly sheared at the waist, his legs flying into the darkness in front of the train and his torso caught between the edge of the concrete and the speeding train. He was turning at the waist like a tumbleweed as the train slowed to a stop.

When the train finally did stop, he was still alive, his face a mask of horror, his arms moving, his mouth moving. He was breathing.

And there was Daisy, having followed him off the train, dropping the bag she was carrying when she realized what he meant to do, running after him, her arms waving, reaching for him, tripping and falling on her knees, watching the train hit him, staring at him when he said something to her. She scrambled to her feet and ran like hell.

Then came back and picked up a bag she’d dropped.

And ran like hell.

Jack turned to see Daisy still sobbing, but not as hard. She was winding down only because she was clearly exhausted. “Where’d that happen?”

“Hundred third,” Simon answered as she moved about the apartment.

“God,” he whispered again, running his hand down his face and looking at her. “Ten blocks. And she went back for the bag? What’s in it?”

“Food.”

An ice pack appeared over his shoulder and he took it with a nod of thanks. He touched it carefully to Daisy’s face, pressing a little here and there to let the cool seep through the towel. Now, a pitcher of ice water and a glass set next to his knees.

“Daisy,” he crooned as he toyed with her hair with one hand and patted her face with the other hand. “Help me a little, willya? I need you to sit up for me. Can you do that?”

Her eyelids didn’t open, but her body moved. A little.

“Heh—heh—he’p,” she blubbered, “me.”

Jack stood immediately and maneuvered her little body upright. Or tried. She was nowhere near five-foot-five, but she was no lightweight, so Simon helped. He plopped on the couch beside her and she promptly fell over into his lap. “Yeah, okay, this isn’t going to work. I need you to drink some water for me, sweetheart. C’mon, gimme some love here.”

She tried. She really did. And she managed, but it was slow and Jack had to bite his tongue to keep from hounding her about being a pussy when push came to shove. “C’mon, sweetheart.” Simon handed him a glass of ice water and he pushed Daisy up enough to get some in her mouth without spilling it, but she grabbed it and chugged it in three gulps.

She stopped, gasped for air, and reached for the pitcher.

She chugged that, too.

“Hydration’s not going to be a problem, thank God,” Jack said wryly.

“Yes, it is. Puking’s next,” Simon said from behind them and handed Jack a pail.

There it was, right on cue.

He didn’t know where she’d been or when she’d last eaten, but there was nothing but water and bile.

“Daize, you wanna take a shower? Nice cold one.”

“She’s in shock. A cold shower’s the last thing she needs. Here.” An afghan hit him in the back of the head. “Wrap her up in that, get her warm, put her in a warm shower if she doesn’t have a fever.”

He did what he was told, had her stretch out on the couch with her head in his lap, and caressed her hair until she went to sleep, still hiccupping and occasionally crying out.

“Shit, that’d be hard on anybody, seeing that,” Simon said as she handed Jack a beer and knelt to dress Daisy’s scraped knees. “The hell of it is, that man’s going to live for a while yet.”

Jack’s head snapped up. “Seriously?”

Simon nodded. “He was cauterized at the waist. His heart, lungs, and brains are still there, doing their jobs.”

Jack could barely make his throat work. “That’s— Me? Daisy?”

“From what I could see on the video,” Simon said matter-of-factly, “Brenda, was it? got pushed all the way in. She probably went quick. You’d have been worse off if you’d hit the train. Gotten your face scraped off at best.”

Jack looked down at the woman in his lap and knew that if it hadn’t been for her— No, he couldn’t think about what might have been, so he struggled to find a logical question to ask. Any question would do.

“Why was she getting off on a hundred and third? There’s a stop on hundred tenth.”

Simon pointed the remote at the TV. “Look how she came off the train. She was following him. She’s looking at him like she wants to see what he’s going to do.”

“And then he did.”

Simon nodded slowly. “Yep. But not before she tried to stop him. And then he said something to her.”

“God,” Jack sighed and propped his face in his palm.

“You need to get in your bed. I have someone coming who needs the couch.”

“And no idea where the kids are.”

“They come and go as they please. Don’t worry about it.”

“Daize,” Jack said, leaning down and murmuring in her ear. “We have to get to bed. C’mon, sweetheart.”

That got her attention, but it took a while to get her moving. She had to pee. Jack was pretty sure she may have already, but he didn’t want to think about that. She gestured that she wanted a shower. Her teeth chattering, she gestured for him to stay and help her in and out of the tub, and he did not mind using the opportunity to look at her naked. Touch her. Caress all that soft, creamy white skin. The breasts he hadn’t yet had a good look at.

They were gorgeous.

He might have felt like a bastard—might—except she was sighing and clinging to him while he did it. She was also half asleep and half traumatized, but he’d take what he could get.

He helped her in and tried to hold her up, but couldn’t, so he ran her a bath when she gestured at the taps. He let her soak for a while, kept the water hot, but didn’t dare leave her in case she fell asleep. When she was ready, she tried to wash herself, but couldn’t hold the soap. So he soaped her up. Scrubbed her down. Even there, which was the first time he’d ever touched a woman there for any purpose other than sex. It was odd. Gross, actually. He did it anyway. Decided to wash her hair. Rinsed her off. Helped her out. Dried her.

Simon opened the door and handed him one of those hospital gowns. “Really?” he demanded.

“If she looks awful enough, maybe you’ll keep your penis to yourself.”

He growled and snatched the sheet. Yeah, he’d thought about it.

But she was exhausted and flopping all over him and he couldn’t get her to stand upright, so his dick wasn’t interested in standing upright, either. He gave up on the hospital gown and tried to simply steer her to the closet.

Finally, finally, he got her up into bed. He pulled the door closed, made sure the fresh-air vent was still open, flipped on a small flashlight, and maneuvered her just enough so he could get in bed too. He didn’t remember that part. He was too tired.

---

20: BOTTOM

“SOME TRADER’S HOURS you keep,” Simon said to him when he dragged his ass into her kitchen the next morning.

“I covet my sleep almost as much as I covet other people’s money,” he yawned and dished himself up some food. He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t care.

“How is she?”

“Breathing,” he grunted. “Clean. Needs to brush her teeth.”

“Have to say, you’ve been a trouper the last few days, Jack. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

He glared at her from under his brows.

“What? It’s an insult to tell you you worked hard and I appreciate it?”

His mouth flattened and he continued to butter his bread. “Unlike some people and her sister,” he said pointedly, “I am not a trust-fund brat or a stranger to manual labor.”

Simon chuckled.

“What was in that bag?” he muttered.

“Steak.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “I like steak.”

“Loaded baked potatoes. Salad. Dressing. French bread. From … Blackwood Securities.”

“Holy shit,” he whispered, turning to look for the familiar logo stamped all over the enormous bag. “She went back for it so she couldn’t be found.”

“Right. Lucky break for us, though, because we needed the food, people in and out of here knowing we have good food and a good cook. Ran through it in no time and we don’t have any cash left.”

He started. “You know what? I bet she does.”

He got up and found her Daisy Dukes, which definitely needed to be laundered. He dug in the pockets. There, in the coin pocket, a rolled up wad of hundred dollar bills. “There’s a good thousand here. She went to Sebastian. I bet she left the kids with him, too.” Jack stuffed two hundred in his pocket and gave the rest to Simon. Then he plopped in his seat and rummaged through the bag for a steak.

Simon was giving him his to-do list for the day, which included fucking laundry, when Daisy came tottering out of the closet in that godawful hospital gown, holding it closed in front of her. She looked like the walking dead, dazed and confused.

Jack arose and helped her to the chair, actually thinking far enough ahead to put something on the vinyl so her legs wouldn’t stick.

“Thank you,” she croaked and stared at the table as if it were a mirage.

“Daisy?” Simon said gently, dipping her head to try to look up into Daisy’s eyes.

Daisy’s eyelashes fluttered up and her mouth trembled. “Tell me it was a bad dream,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

Neither Simon nor Jack said a word.

“I didn’t— I knew something was wrong, but I wasn’t paying attention and then he got off and he was crying and I didn’t know what to do so I followed him and maybe something would occur to me and then he— I didn’t know if I should offer a shoulder or not. And I would’ve stayed but—” Then she broke down and buried her face in her arms folded across the table, sobbing like a sentient person, not a completely traumatized zombie. “Again,” she sobbed. “But he didn’t die!” she wailed into the Formica.

Simon and Jack looked at each other and simply waited. Finally—finally—she ran down until she was just hiccupping and she was still awake.

“You need to eat,” he said gruffly. “You didn’t have anything in your stomach last night.”

“I—” She hiccupped. “—puked—halfway—here. Can’t run—very far.”

“Spud?”

She nodded wearily and took the delivery dish with a nod of thanks.

“Kids with Sebastian?”

She nodded again. “They slept in your office bedroom last night. He slept on the couch.” She sniffled and started babbling again, something about how pretty Manhattan is at night from high up over it. Something about how the security guard didn’t know what bless your heart meant. Something about Jesus not being able to hold his high-velocity ascents. Then she looked at Jack, wild-eyed, and wailed, “He talked to me!”

Jack reached over and smoothed her curls behind her ear. “What’d he say?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear words out of a man he’d seen cut in half. The security camera footage was bad enough; he couldn’t imagine seeing it happening ten feet in front of his face.

She took a deep breath. “‘I can’t even die right.’”

Simon looked away and pressed a knuckle to her eye. Jack watched Daisy, the rapid play of expressions across her face, and caressed her cheek with his thumb.

“Jack,” she whispered.

He shook his head. “Nope.”

Her bottom lip trembled and her eyes squeezed shut. Tears dropped off her chin and jaw, ran down her throat. “Please.”

“No.” But he arose and gently guided her to the couch, sat, and pulled her down beside him, had her lie down with her head in his lap as he had last night.

“Jack,” Simon said quietly after a while. He looked up to see her dressed as expensively as a boutique physician to the superwealthy should dress, her purse and heels in her hand. “I’m going to go see my dad. I’ll be gone quite a while.”

Jack had held this fort down before so he simply nodded. The front door, which was really a commercial freezer door, swept closed softly and the lock clicked. Daisy was still except for hiccups. Her hospital gown was barely covering her butt and he could see her goosebumps, so he reached for the afghan and spread it over her.

He pointed the remote at the TV hoping to fill the silence with something, anything, even daytime soaps. Ah, there, the news. They showed the tape with the actual carnage blurred, but before Jack could click away, she whispered, “Wait.”

They reported the man to be suffering from depression that had been thought to be under control. He’d left a note before he’d left home. I’m worth more to you dead than alive. The “you” was a wife and three children.

“Not when you commit suicide,” Daisy whispered.

“He couldn’t make it look like an accident, I guess,” Jack murmured, still petting her. “Or he didn’t know.”

“Jack, he was so sad. What if I’d talked to him before he got off the train instead of after? What if I’d—”

“He was sick, Daize. You can’t fix that with a heart-to-heart with a stranger on a train.”

“No, you don’t understand. Everybody comes to me.”

His brow wrinkled. “To do what?”

“To vent. To talk. To get advice. To cry. To get comfort.”

Of course they did. “Who’s everybody?”

“Freshmen, mostly.”

“The frosh pep talk.”

She said nothing for a while. The news changed to Jack’s situation, with reports now that Jack really might have been pushed, but no names were named. A witness had been found to describe Val well enough to get a decent sketch of her. Brenda was estranged from her family, which wasn’t a complete surprise, but memorial services would be held for her tomorrow. Knox appeared on screen, reiterating that he didn’t know where Jack was but that if Jack was watching the news, he would know what Knox wanted him to do.

Jack sighed. He wanted this whole thing over with, and he was still tempted to call Hilliard to come pick him up.

“I want to go home,” Daisy croaked, and started to cry again. Softly.

“I know,” Jack said calmly, running his fingers through her curls. But his ribcage cracked open and flipped itself inside out. He didn’t know why he expected her to stay. This wasn’t her problem. It was never her problem. She’d made it her problem because she was a protector by nature, but it was a problem she could walk away from.

Jack was relatively well hidden and the kids were taken care of. Melinda, Bucho, Sebastian, and Jack’s uncle were on top of things. Jack had a good lawyer even if he was a young outsider. It was only another week, maybe ten days, that he’d have to wait out the cops and the media, and now he was a bit loath to leave because Simon desperately needed his help.

Daisy had done that, saved his life and possibly his reputation. She somehow got everybody they met sorted out and taken care of. Her job was finished. Over. Fini.

He didn’t want her to go but he couldn’t ask her to stay.

★